Anomie
by Mortalus
Summary: Post Hogwarts. Will be LVHP slash. Harry's marriage and career are failing. Voldemort, having lost his magical powers, is being kept in a special Ministry prison. Events and mutual depression conspire to throw the two enemies together again.
1. Routine

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Story Summary:** Nearly a decade post-Hogwarts, Harry's Quidditch career is slipping into nothingness, his marriage to Ginny is failing, and even his friendship with Ron is on the rocks. Lord Voldemort, having lost all his magical powers, has been imprisoned by a Ministry too fearful to kill him and is slowly whiling his years away in bored ignominy. Meanwhile, the magical world itself is losing the ability to perform magic …   
**Main Pairing:** Lord Voldemort/Harry Potter   
**Other Pairings:** Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley (established relationship), Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger (established relationship)  
**Rating:** Rated M for character death, violence, naughty language, psychological manipulation, angst, sexual situations, suicide(s), and brutal murder(s)   
**A/N:** Welcome! There are a fair number of people who have told me to hurry up with this, so thanks to them for the motivation! This fic is being written with one cardinal intention: representing an _in-character_ sexual/semi-romantic relationship between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. In-character means that Harry is not going to pull an Anakin Skywalker and "turn to the Dark Side". It also means that Voldemort is going to be, by and large, an unrepentant sociopath. No damnation for one, no redemption for the other. If any character is acting _really_ strangely (e.g. Harry in this chapter), I promise that there is a very good plot-related reason. In-character also means that there will not be smut for a long while. _Kiss or Kill_ readers know the score.

Still here? Great. Enjoy!

**Anomie**

**_Chapter One: Routine_**

_The Second Monday in August, 2007:_

_Beep beep beep beep …_

Harry cracked one eyelid open, then the other. The room was so dark that it hardly mattered if his eyes were open or not. His hand brushed against Ginny's back as it moved upward to rub the sleep out of his eyes, and he yawned softly. Ginny mumbled something and shifted, clutching the sheet closer.

_… beep beep …_

Pushing himself up on one elbow, Harry reached out his other hand to flick the switch on the alarm clock. He sat on the side of the bed, stretching his arms and his back in his usual way, and then stood. With bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor, Harry made his way to the adjoining bathroom by memory, turned on the light, and shut the door quickly so as not to disturb his wife.

His morning rituals went as usual, except that Harry cut himself while shaving, which tended to happen at least once every few days, during those times when his mind blanked as he stared into his own eyes in the mirror. Normally Harry tried to avoid looking anywhere else in the mirror but exactly the spot where he was shaving or exactly the part of his hair he was combing because he knew what he would – or wouldn't – see if he looked at himself. But sometimes he would wake up too groggy to remember to avoid his own image, and then he would remember again only when he got cut along his cheek by the razor.

When he left the bathroom, Ginny entered it. Then Harry ate the breakfast Ginny had prepared while he was in the bathroom. It was Monday, so this consisted of sausages and fried eggs. He ate exactly two-thirds of what Ginny had placed on his plate, as usual; he wondered why Ginny always put the extra third on the plate even though he never ate it, but, as usual, when she entered the kitchen again, he forgot to ask.

'I'll be home by seven,' said Ginny as she went to sit down. While she picked up her fork, she asked, 'When will you be in?'

'Late,' Harry replied reflexively. He was always in late.

Ginny hummed in acknowledgement, and then the only sound between them was that of their cutlery against their plates. Ginny had turned the television on; it wasn't plugged in to an electrical outlet, of course, but it still displayed one of several channels from the WBN – the Wizarding Broadcast Network, which had branched out from wireless service to television some eight years earlier. Harry listened disinterestedly without looking up from his plate as the news played at low-volume; it usually had to do with the Minister making a lengthy speech that said nothing at all, or some demented old witch with twenty Crups in her house. It was no different that day; something about a drunken wizard doing things drunken wizards do that get them noticed by Muggles, Obliviators cleaning up the scene, etcetera.

Ginny finished first, as always, because she rarely ate much at breakfast and Harry ate slowly these days, and she left her dishes in the sink for Harry to clean. Then she went back into the bathroom to apply her makeup.

Dim light was finally filtering through the blinds on tall windows of their apartment. Ginny had shoes on now; her heels clicked against the floor as she walked over to Harry. He swallowed the last of the eggs he was planning to eat; she kissed him quickly on the cheek, and then walked back the way she had come, toward the door. 'See you this evening,' she called as she opened the door, looking back at him.

By the time Harry looked up, she was already facing out into the hallway. 'Have a nice day,' he replied mechanically as the door shut.

Every day, right after the door to the apartment closed, Harry would sit very still until either a few minutes had passed or the chirping of birds broke the silence. It was late summer, so the latter occurred within moments. Harry picked up his own dishes and cleaned up with a few quick spells, then went to the door to get his shoes on.

As he slipped his right foot into his right shoe – he put his shoes on right foot first, always – he dimly heard a familiar voice booming from the fireplace. Most apartments didn't have fireplaces, of course, but Harry's apartment wasn't like most others, as the fireplace was magical. He took off his shoe and walked into the living room; once there, he was unsurprised to see the wide, square-jawed face of his team's Quidditch coach, his small eyes following Harry as he moved across the room.

'Potter!' Coach Quigley said curtly. 'Practice today is cancelled. Wife's popping out another kid. I've gotta be there this time, she says. Bloody Lamaze.'

Aside from a brief twitch of his eyebrows, Harry's expression remained unchanged. 'Congratulations, sir,' he said tonelessly.

Coach Quigley grunted in reply. 'I'll see you bright and early tomorrow.'

'Yes, sir.'

The coach departed. Harry stood stationary by the fire for a few minutes, his hands in his pockets, wondering what to do. The bars weren't open this early. Ron was at work. Hermione was at work. His teammates wouldn't have anything to do, but the bars weren't open this early.

'What a lousy day,' muttered Harry.

* * *

'Hmm _hmm_ hmmhmmhmm hmmhmm _hmm_ hmmhmm hmm …' 

Rue brushed her hair from roots to tips, over and over, head to shoulder, humming a tune that had come thoughtlessly to mind. Then she pointed her wand at her hair and stopped humming briefly as she cast a clever little spell to make her red hair curve around her face just right.

'Honey, you're going to be late!'

'I'll be fine, Mum!' she called in reply, setting down the brush. 'Hmm _hmm _hmm –'

'Honey, he's here!'

'Coming, Mum!'

Rue set down the brush. It _was_ late. She was never on time, though. _But it's my first day on this job, _she reminded herself forcefully. She pointed her wand at her face. _A quick makeup application should do._ Within an instant she was presentable, though not more than that, in her opinion. The good makeup spells took at least ten minutes of chanting and concentration. _How on earth does Mum manage without magic?_ wondered Rue. _I'd be a wreck!_

She left the bathroom and hurried down the stairs to the kitchen, where she knew he'd be waiting. It was quite a sight when she walked in: her father, her mother, and her boyfriend all in the same room. _There's a first time for everything._

'Are you almost ready, Rue?' her boyfriend, Fairfax, asked. 'We've got a fair hike to get to work from here.'

Her father's bushy eyebrows raised. 'Do you, now? You're not Apparating?'

'No, Mr Moreland,' replied Fairfax politely. He took a sip of the coffee Rue's mother had poured for him. 'It's against procedure.'

'You're going there the Muggle way, Ramsden?' asked her father, clearly interested. He leaned closer with his elbows set on the table and his fingers steepled.

Fairfax Ramsden shook his head. 'I can't say any more, sir. I'm sure you, of all people, can understand.'

Muireadhach Moreland only grunted in reply, leaning back in his chair again. He looked at Rue, then barked, 'Good Merlin, girl! This is hardly an occasion to primp yourself!'

'Now Muireadhach,' Rue's mother said gently, not looking up from her task of wiping the counter where some coffee had spilled, 'I was the same way when we first started dating.'

'You weren't the same way _eight months_ after we first started dating. It's been eight months, seventeen days, hasn't it, Ramsden?' An unpleasant smirk spread over Mr Moreland's face as he noticed Fairfax's look of surprise. 'I have a very good memory, boy. Don't think otherwise just because I'm retired.'

Fairfax forced a smile. 'You were a very good Auror in your day, sir. I would never underestimate you.'

Mr Moreland sneered. 'If you didn't underestimate me, you wouldn't be robbing my cradle.'

'Now boys,' Mrs Moreland said, wearing a fake smile of her own. 'Let's try to get along. Here's your coffee, Rue, and some toast.'

Only as her mother set her small breakfast down on the round glass kitchen table did Rue realise that she herself was still standing in the doorway, watching the exchange with wide-eyed dread. Things were never pleasant between her father and her boyfriends, but she had hoped her father would have gotten used to Fairfax after all this time. Rue knew he didn't appreciate the age difference between them – she was twenty-one and Fairfax was thirty-five – but that was hardly anything to wizarding life spans. Her father never saw it that way, though, despite being a wizard himself.

'You, err, do look a little … err … too nice for the occasion, Rue,' said Fairfax as Rue drank her coffee, diplomatically ignoring her father's rude remarks.

Rue smiled playfully. 'Am I not supposed to look attractive when I'm going to be spending the entire day with my boyfriend?'

Her father harrumphed, and Rue looked down at her toast, contrite.

Fairfax frowned. 'You won't be spending the _entire_ time with me, you know. And this is work. _Serious_ work, Rue.'

'That's what I keep trying to tell her!' her father said, slamming his fist down on the table. The other occupants of the room stiffened, except for Rue's mother, who continued puttering about the kitchen unaffected. 'She really isn't taking this seriously enough … well, the younger generation, you know, they don't realize what it was like …'

Rue took a bite of her toast, trying to ignore her father, and failing as always. _Oh, what does he know? Well, he may have been a very good Auror, but it's not as though it's a dangerous mission. We're only guarding someone who's practically a Muggle, no matter what else he may have been before!_

'I'll take good care of your daughter, sir, as always,' said Fairfax good-naturedly, trying to diffuse the situation.

But it seemed too late for that; her father clung to the idea like a bulldog clamped down on a raw, juicy steak. 'I don't want that _thing_ seeing my daughter looking like that! It's disgusting!'

'I've only got some makeup on,' said Rue quietly. She put her half-eaten toast back on the plate, not feeling much like eating anymore. 'The robes are standard-issue.'

'He's older than you, sir!' Fairfax said, letting out a laugh. 'Really, I _don't_ think –'

'No, you don't! None of you ever do! You're both too young! Go ahead, then! Nothing I say will stop you!'

Rue pushed her chair back and stood up. 'I'll go take the makeup off. Excuse me,' she said. Fairfax gave her a look: that look of his that said, _What? He just said he'd let us go! You don't have to!_ But she looked away, left the kitchen, and walked lifelessly up the stairs leading back to her room. She wiped the makeup off with a single spell – she hadn't needed to return to the bathroom, really – and took a deep, steadying breath. She stared at herself in the mirror, wiped her eyes with a towel – _just to make sure the mascara is gone, _she told herself – and went back down. She bypassed the kitchen and headed straight for the landing, where Fairfax was waiting, looking unpleasant.

'Goodbye, Father,' she called. 'Bye, Mum!' Before either of her parents could reply, she and Fairfax were out the door.

As soon as he was a few feet from the house, Fairfax started in about her father. 'Lord, Rue, I don't know how you put up with the man! If my father treated _me_ that way, I'd tell him to stick it where the sun doesn't shine!'

Rue smiled slightly despite herself. Playfully, for she was not built to be ill-humoured for long, she said, 'You would not and you know it. Your father would disinherit you if you said that to him, and then where would you get the money for all your expensive robes, hmm? Being an Auror doesn't pay _that_ well!'

Fairfax's thin lips took a downturn and his chin moved upward in that disapproving, aristocratic way of his, and Rue laughed. 'See! Look at you! A typical aristo! No wonder Father hates you!'

'Humph,' Fairfax said. He tilted his head and ran one long-fingered hand through his short-cropped straw-coloured hair. There really wasn't enough of it for the move to look right, but he had only cut his hair recently and still had a tendency to move imaginary stray strands out of his eyes. Rue noticed things like that all the time about everyone; indeed, noticing things was her one real talent as an Auror.

He grabbed her shoulder, and they Apparated together. _Where are we going?_ Rue wondered.

They appeared in a dank alley, greeted by the sound of honking horns from a nearby busy street and the persistent smell of urine. Rue wrinkled her nose. 'You sure know how to treat a girl.'

Fairfax blew out a puff of air in a soft huff of laughter. 'We need to hurry. We'll be late for the train.'

* * *

Every morning when Ron Weasley first sat behind his desk, he felt as though he were being locked inside a cage to serve an eight-hour sentence … an eight hour sentence that was not worth it for the Galleons he was paid. His chair squeaked as he leaned back slightly, looking up into the light above him. _What was that you said about me going insane, Harry?_ Ron thought with more good humour than his opinion on his job would indicate. 

The Head of the Auror Office wanted him to make a full report on the incident with that crazy drunken bastard, Mundungus Fletcher. He may have been in the Order, but Ron felt nothing but contempt for the man. He knew what true suffering was, and nothing Mundungus had gone through could possibly justify his recent behaviour. _He's going senile_, Ron thought, a sigh escaping his lips as he pulled open the desk drawer that contained the papers necessary for the filing. _He's a drunk, senile bastard … to think that I miss the days when he was hawking cauldrons …_

It seemed to Ron as though no one was the same as they were … no one but him and Hermione. Sometimes it seemed as though they were the only sane people left in the world. He took out his quill and dipped it in ink. Ron remembered the days when an Auror would have laughed off a job like this. It was something any ordinary Magical Law Enforcement employee could look after, not something that required three years of extra training after Hogwarts to handle. _Be glad life's so dull, Weasley,_ Ron told himself over and over as he filled out the report unthinkingly. _Be glad._

He knew he was being maudlin – Hermione had taught him that word, maudlin – about his job lately. It wasn't as though he _never_ got anything interesting to do. Someone had finally realized a few years back that if they didn't give the younger Aurors some decent cases once in a while that they'd be left with over a dozen desk-bound paper-pushers calling themselves elite law enforcement in a few decades' time. Thus, occasionally, it would be Kingsley or Proudfoot or Tonks who would get the dull jobs in favour of letting some younger blood have a shot at a real case. And Ron _did_ get more real cases than most because of his reputation; he had, after all, helped take _him_ down.

So it didn't do to be overly depressed about a few dull days, or weeks, or months at work. It wasn't as though he had anyone to be jealous of; there simply hadn't been any good – as in bad – incidents lately. He knew he should be glad.

But Merlin, it was boring.

'Ugh,' he heard Tonks say from a few cubicles down. Ron grinned, and he was about to call out to her to ask her what case she was working on when Kingsley beat him to it. 'Some old lady with biting teacups,' she replied. At this, Ron sniggered; it sounded exactly like a case his father would have worked on in the old days. _If we're getting cases like this, what on earth is everyone else doing?_ he wondered.

'How's your girl?' Kingsley asked her.

'A handful. Rosie's at that age.'

How old was Tonks' girl now? Two? Well, she wasn't Tonks' girl, technically – she and Remus had adopted her recently thanks to Hermione's lobbying group. Ron remembered how his own children, Susan and Edward, had been at that age: no to this, no to that, no to everything.

Ron had lost track of the conversation. He picked up on it again when Tonks said, '… can't believe I'm actually looking forward to my Friday shift.'

Kingsley was silent after she said this; Tonks muttered something Ron couldn't make out, Kingsley muttered something back to her, and then all Ron heard was the scratching of quills on parchment. _Her Friday shift … what's she got on Friday?_ Ron frowned, trying to recall if he'd been told about anything happening on Fridays for Tonks. He wasn't surprised when he couldn't come up with anything; it wasn't the sort of detail Ron was likely to remember even if he'd been told. 'What've you got on Friday, Tonks?' he called out.

At least a few of the quills in the Auror office stopped moving. After a few moments in which Ron could feel tension building, Kingsley replied, 'Get back to work, Weasley.'

Ron didn't think it was really his fault that he hadn't made any friends at the office. They had all been so close-knit when he'd got there, and the only other two who had graduated from Auror training with him had been dating each other. Ron, for his part, had been busy with wedding plans for both himself and for those nearest and dearest to him. By the time he'd been ready to find friends that weren't … well, Harry … he'd been locked out. That wasn't to say they weren't decent to him, but he knew Tonks and Kingsley still saw him as they had when he was in his fifth year at Hogwarts, and he'd never managed to connect to the others. Ron had always considered himself a personable person before becoming an Auror, but now, by a combination of choice and lack of options, he was alone. And clueless, apparently.

And bored shirtless.

'What a lousy day,' Ron muttered.


	2. Regulation

**A/N:** I apologize for the long wait between updates. The next update shouldn't take such a long time. Details on the upcoming updates to any of my fics, or at least my best guess as to when an update will occur, can be found in my user profile.

One reviewer mentioned that it might enhance the experience of my readers if they knew what the word 'Anomie' means. I don't like pasting definitions into fics because I find it pretentious, but if you're interested in the meaning of 'Anomie', you can find a decent article on the subject on Wikipedia

_**Chapter Two: Regulation**_

To Rue's surprise, Fairfax did not lead them into the street, but instead further down the alley. As they walked, a near-toothless man with an unpleasant smell about him called out gruffly, 'Got change, pretty lady?' Fairfax hustled her past, glaring at the man sitting on the ground, and they continued to walk quickly until they came to a red spray-painted image of a phoenix, its wings spread wide and its head turned to the side with one wide unmoving eye fixed upon them.

Fairfax held his wand up to the eye of the phoenix's eye and said, 'It's our shift.' The eye of the phoenix blinked; then, starting with the brick on which the eye was painted and growing rapidly outward, a hole appeared in the wall of the old building large enough for them to fit through.

Rue looked nervously toward the man in the alley, who was looking toward them intently. 'Fairfax, what about that Muggle?'

'He's a homeless drunk. Who would believe him? He watches me enter every day… watches the others, too. Come on.' Fairfax beckoned toward the entrance.

The room itself was small enough that it felt cramped to Rue even with just Fairfax there with her. On the walls were tall lockers, none of them with locks but all of them with labels. _Wyndham Wolcott, Consus Quigley, Evander Edgecomb…_

'Here's yours,' Fairfax said, making a tapping noise with his fingernail as he put his hand over the one labelled _Rue Moreland_. He opened it and took out a long Muggle skirt, a sleeveless shirt, and a pair of shoes to match, setting them down on a bench. 'We need to wear Muggle clothes for the Underground.'

'We're taking the Underground?' she asked, dragging the clothes nearer.

'Part of the way, yes.' He started unbuttoning his robe. 'Now normally you'll have to arrive here earlier so we can be at work by eight o'clock – you can get here on your own now, can't you? You have such a good memory – but I told Ajit we'd be late today since I couldn't pick you up earlier. Business, you know.'

'Hmm,' she murmured. Rue wasn't much interested in Fairfax's business and he knew it; it was probably a phone call to some other time zone for his father's company. The company or corporation or whatever it was did something Fairfax had told her about a thousand times, but Muggle business was one of the things Rue tried to forget about.

Rue was going to ask who Ajit was, as she hadn't heard of an Auror by that name, but her robes dropped to the floor and she was distracted by Fairfax's boyish bug-eyed look. She glanced at him and raised an eyebrow – it was nothing he hadn't seen before, after all – and he turned away, blushing. 'Oh, um, and don't worry about one of the others walking in while you're changing. The phoenix will make them wait if someone's already here. You have to unzip the side first,' said Fairfax, watching as Rue struggled to pull the skirt up over her hips. Fairfax rolled his eyes as her fingers searched for the zipper on the wrong side, and he reached over to tug the zipper down himself. 'Honestly, Rue, your mum's a Muggle!'

'I've never worn Muggle clothes!' she protested. 'Father always had me in robes, even when I was little! And I might ask how _you_ know anything about skirts!'

Fairfax blushed deeper. 'I…er…'

Rue smirked and pulled her top on. Fairfax was still in his boxers. 'You might want to hurry,' she said pertly. 'The tube awaits.' Then, burning with curiosity and unused to having nothing to do while waiting for Fairfax as events always happened the other way around, Rue asked, 'What's he like, Fairfax?'

Fairfax looked up from the zipper of his pants in surprise at her question. She knew by the look he was giving her that she was acting too excited for his liking again, but how could she _not_ be excited when she would be meeting the most famous wizard in England, maybe even in all of Europe or even in the entire world, in less than an hour? Fairfax shook his head and went back to changing. 'I'll tell you when we get there. We aren't allowed to discuss him outside of the building. It's against regulation.'

Rue pouted. 'Where am I supposed to keep my wand? This skirt has no pockets!'

'Just carry it, Rue. The Muggles really won't be looking at us that closely while we're wearing clothes like theirs. We'll be changing again when we get there. Oh,' he said as he tossed her a large plastic shopping bag, 'and put your robes in here.'

They left the room through the same wall they had entered it from, and Fairfax led Rue only a little over a block away to the nearest entrance to the London Underground. Rue had taken the Underground before during basic training, but she'd been in robes then. She had goggled at Muggle children playing electric games and Muggle adults talking into small gadgets in their hands, and they had goggled right back. Now she could stare at them all she liked as long as she looked away before they noticed her; she wasn't conspicuous at all. It was as if she and Fairfax were Muggles themselves! The thought nearly made her giggle out loud.

'You're like a little kid,' said Fairfax as they got off at their stop. 'You were staring at the Muggles like they were fish in a bowl.'

'Was not,' Rue replied petulantly.

Fairfax inclined his head. 'We're going that way.'

'Are we almost there? And why couldn't we just Apparate?' she asked as they walked through the throng.

'We can't risk being followed. That's why we only Apparate as far as the changing room and then take the Underground to get lost in the crowds. We don't have to worry so much about that now, but we still need to move away from the Muggles to Apparate.'

'Have you ever been followed before?' she asked.

'Not personally, but others have. It's mostly the reporters who try it, not anyone dangerous, at least not for years, and they're easy to spot. It's just a precaution. I'll admit that I've taken a chance and skipped the Underground when I'm running late, but I really shouldn't have told you that because now you'll do it that way _all_ the time.' She smiled innocently and he glared. 'I'm serious, Rue; you can't do it regularly. If you get caught you'll get in serious trouble.'

Rue sighed. 'Fine, fine, I'll take the long way.' Under her breath, she added, 'Sometimes.'

It took at least ten minutes to walk to the Apparition point. It was inside a grungy bathroom in a dirty old Muggle building. 'Right, here we go.' He grabbed onto Rue's shoulder and Apparated.

Rue looked around in confusion. They appeared to be standing behind a large trash bin in yet another dank, smelly alley. 'For Merlin's sake, Fairfax, where are we now?'

'We're here.'

She closed her eyes in exasperation. 'You're telling me that You-Know-Who is imprisoned in a trash bin?'

Fairfax thumbed toward a metal door on his left that was attached to a tall building with broken windows. 'No, he's imprisoned _here_. What?' he asked jokingly upon registering her wide-eyed expression. 'Not quite what you expected?' Fairfax tapped his wand on the door. 'Only a Senior Guard can open the door, by the way – from the outside _or_ from the inside. Lucky for us, I am one, so we won't have to ring the doorbell. It's here if you need it.' He indicated a small white button.

'You-Know-Who has a doorbell?' said Rue, deadpanning.

Fairfax opened the door. 'No, _we_ have a doorbell. It's not as though he gets to decide who comes and goes.'

They entered a metal stairwell and walked only a few steps to another door. 'We can talk in the porter's office,' said Fairfax.

'There's a porter's office?'

Fairfax smiled and opened the door into a reception area; wicker chairs without cushions stood atop cheap and filthy rugs on either side of a very large set of thick wooden doors. Light streamed into the room, highlighting the dust in the air. 'Muggles only see an abandoned building from the outside,' said Fairfax.

Rue's eyes watered uncomfortably as she cringed away from the glaring brightness in the windows. 'I must be losing my magic then.'

He chuckled. 'It's an old Muggle apartment building that the Ministry bought out. We don't keep up much with the cleaning on this floor; _he_ never comes down this far anyway. He'd never be allowed this close to a door. Actually, the front one doesn't open, but it's the principle of the thing.'

The porter's office was much neater though just as spartan with only an old but clean desk and two wooden chairs scrunched between the walls. Fairfax immediately took the chair behind the desk, leaving Rue with the one in front of it.

'So what should I know?' she asked eagerly as she leaned over the desk.

'There are rules,' said Fairfax. 'I've done this introduction at least a half dozen times now what with being on the job for eight years, so just let me go through my spiel and don't interrupt until I'm finished. I'll probably answer most of your questions along the way.'

Rue waited, her lips pressed tightly together.

'There are a few things you need to know before starting the job and a few more things you need to know that you'll pick up along the way. When we go upstairs, you will be meeting one of the most feared wizards to ever draw breath. The catch is that he is, as you already know, a Muggle now –'

'Squib,' Rue corrected.

Fairfax made an impatient noise. 'Regardless of the technical definition, he's a Muggle for all intents and purposes. But the biggest mistake you could possibly make would be to underestimate him because he doesn't have magical powers any longer. He is still extremely dangerous by any standards. With or without a wand, he is a homicidal sociopath. He has killed before and has no regrets whatsoever about it. Are we clear?' Rue nodded. 'Good. That means you must keep your wand with you at all times, and by that I mean we follow the Two Second Rule stringently, as well as the First Grab Rule. Remember, he may not be a wizard, but you're not a witch either without a wand; if he manages to separate you from your wand, you will be on equal footing with a man who has no compunction against murdering you where you stand. Clear?'

Rue nodded again. She'd had trouble with the Two Second Rule during Auror training, but it was instinct to her now. All it meant was that she could keep her wand wherever she liked so long as she could aim it at any target in the room within two seconds. As for the First Grab Rule, it was pretty cut and dry: make sure you can reach your wand before your opponent. She didn't approve of it being a rule at all since it seemed like little more than common sense to her.

'We also have another rule here, the Two Meter Rule, meaning you have to stay at least two meters away from _him_ at all times, but no one really follows that one unless they're alone with him.' He raised his hand to silence her before she could speak. 'No, I have no intention of leaving you alone with him any time soon. Don't worry. We usually have at least two guards out of four with him physically at any given time while the others perform any necessary building or ward maintenance, laundry, cooking –'

'We _cook _for him? But I can't cook!'

'I know, I know, we'll have you do something else. Ajit usually cooks anyway.'

'Can't someone else do his cooking for him?' she went on, talking over top of Fairfax's assurances. Then, having heard that odd name again somewhere in the jumble, she asked, 'And who is Ajit?'

'_Rue,_' said Fairfax, rubbing his temples. 'Let me finish!'

'Sorry. But cooking was _not_ in the job description!'

'_If I may continue_, the job doesn't end with just guard duty. This building is nine floors tall and we have to keep it reasonably presentable on all of them. I know it sounds absurd, but the Ministry has mandatory health and safety standards for all buildings it owns, including this one, even if almost none of it is ever used. We're the only ones allowed inside, so we have to do the cleaning. We had a house-elf for the first few years, but after those working standards for house-elves passed the Ministry had to get rid of it because You-Know-Who counted as an "unsafe working condition".

'As you already know, each shift is for twelve hours. We're the Monday to Thursday shift from 8 AM to 8 PM; the night shift led by Quigley and Wolcott will take over from 8 PM through 8 AM, and then we'll take over the next morning, and on and on it goes until Thursday evening, and then it picks up again on Monday when we take over from O'Hare and Hasib on the weekend shift. You'll get the hang of shift-changing as you go along, and I'll be here to walk you through the procedures.

'So we've gone over the rules you need to follow for your own safety, the chores that will be expected of you – no cooking, cross my heart – and the basics of your shifts.' Fairfax counted each off on his fingers. 'All that's left is what you need to know for _his_ safety.'

'For _his_ safety?'

'Right,' Fairfax said, ignoring Rue's cynicism. 'In case it hasn't become obvious by now, no one but us is allowed in the building…generally, anyway.'

'Generally?'

'There are scheduled visitors. You don't have to worry about that. If anyone else tries to enter, an alarm will sound. If the alarm is disarmed…well, there are always at least two of us on his floor. Sound the alarm – standard procedures, you know those – and fight them off. Keep him secure.'

Rue thought sadly about the sort of people who would want to attack _him_: those who had lost loved ones to that mad crusade. Fairfax must have misinterpreted her expression for fear, for he said kindly, 'Don't worry, Rue. We've had three attacks in nearly a decade, and none of them have been well-organized.

'The final rule, which will apply more frequently than the last, is that you cannot do any harm to him, no matter how much you want to.' Fairfax rolled his eyes. 'Believe me, you'll want to. If he gets cranky, immobilize him, but _don't_ Stun him.'

'Why not?'

Fairfax sighed. 'We've had a policy against Stunning him since before I got on the job. I heard that he took two Stunners at once and nearly had a heart attack. The man's eighty years old, Rue, and he's defenceless. Mind you, he _is_ in very good shape for his age – to be honest, I think he might have faked the heart attack bit, but it's policy not to Stun him anyway.'

'How can anyone fake a heart attack?'

'If anyone could, it'd be him.' Fairfax looked exasperated at the mere thought of _him_. 'I'm done with the regulations for now; there's only so much a person can absorb at once. Questions?'

Immediately Rue's most pressing question came to mind. 'Why is he living here? I understand why he hasn't been killed; everyone worries that he'll be resurrected with his magical powers intact. And I understand why he's not in Azkaban: he might incite the other prisoners to riot. And I understand why he hasn't been given the Kiss –'

'No one _understands_ it,' interrupted Fairfax. 'Well, Potter has some explanation, but he may as well be speaking Gobbledegook. The Dementors just won't do it. Not a one of them.'

'But even so, why a Muggle apartment building?'

Fairfax shrugged. 'Ask Potter. _He_ chose the venue.'

* * *

_It wasn't eerily quiet or explosively loud, just the feet of two men passing along the grass, with growls, snarls, and jabs interlacing the web of spells they threw at each other. 'Poor ickle Potter. Is this the best you can do? Avada Kedavra!'_

_Harry dodged the spell; Voldemort was quick on his feet and even quicker with his spells, but Harry was faster. He spared a brief thought for Dudley, which mostly went _Dudley_ since there wasn't time for more than that. Then Harry shot off another spell, non-verbal, which Voldemort easily countered._

Not yet_, Harry thought. His right upper arm was in agony, having been grazed early on in the battle by a spell Harry hadn't recognized. Spells in that category were few and far between, but trust Voldemort to know something obscure that Harry hadn't had a counter ready for. Voldemort had tried that same spell a few times after, but it was too slow to catch Harry now that he was prepared for it. _

_But Harry was bound to trip up some time under the barrage of curses Voldemort was casting at him, and they both knew it. What Voldemort didn't know was that Harry was simply buying time. _Segnipedis, _Harry thought, concentrating hard on the spell. An advantage of the Slowing Spell was that it appeared as a wide-ranging mist instead of a direct beam of light from one's wand, making it harder to dodge. A disadvantage was that it was easy to block, and Voldemort rapidly took advantage of that fact. _Idiot!_ Harry cursed at himself. That spell was too juvenile for Harry to have reasonably expected Voldemort to get caught by it; he'd learned it from Kingsley during his first month of training._

_Not yet. Harry blocked Voldemort's latest spell with pride; the Dark Lord had underestimated him again. 'Wearing down already, old man?' Harry sniped. 'I could go on all day.' But he wouldn't need to if Ron and Hermione got their job done soon. Harry couldn't make his move until they did, but nor could he fight to exhaustion before then. _

_Voldemort's knee was already giving the Dark Lord some trouble. Harry had gotten him there hard enough to bring him to one knee as his leg collapsed under him. But then Voldemort had guarded himself too well while recovering for Harry to capitalize. It would have been the perfect time for Harry's finishing move, if only Ron and Hermione had given the signal then. Surely Voldemort must have wondered why Harry hadn't cast something serious during such an opening – like, say, the Killing Curse…_

_Harry circled his opponent in the same way that his opponent circled him. If he could keep going for that knee, if he could keep injuring it and slowing Voldemort down, then he would have a fighting chance. _

_Voldemort smiled. It was ugly. 'Harry,' the Dark Lord said softly, 'just die.' A spell came Harry's way._

_Not yet._

Harry opened his eyes without any rush; he had managed to push back the memories seconds before. Or, more accurately, he had let the memories fall away. It wasn't hard to stop remembering lately; in fact, it was harder to remember than to forget. It had all happened a long time ago, after all, and the memories had lost their urgency and colour. Harry wasn't even sure if he recalled all the facts properly anymore. That didn't matter; Harry could always check his memories against the transcript of his interrogation at the Ministry if he wanted to be accurate. He didn't much care to.

Harry sighed as he reclined on the couch, staring up at the ceiling fan, which made a rhythmic clicking noise with every rotation. He kept telling himself he was going to fix that, but he never got around to lifting his wand.

There weren't any chores he wanted to do. The Leaky Cauldron would be open now, but Harry hated drinking alone, and none of his teammates wanted to go drinking with him until evening; he had already called them all up through the Floo. _I may as well do the shopping. There's nothing else to do. _

But Harry didn't move at all. Shopping was so boring. Ginny usually did the shopping, anyway. He'd only muck it up. He sighed again; there wasn't anything interesting for Harry to do on a weekday morning with practice cancelled. He could go browse in Diagon Alley, but he didn't much care to see Quidditch fans glaring at him as he walked around the shops. Maybe after his next match those glares would turn to smiles again. _Not yet._


	3. Stories

**A/N: **Hooray! An update! I've already started chapter 4, so the next update should come much faster than this one did! Thanks to all of those who reviewed previous chapters, and to my beta reader, Clara Minutes :)_**  
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_**Chapter Three: Stories**_

'Damn elevator's broken again,' stated Fairfax as he pressed the up button for the fifth time. It lit up for a few moments, but the elevator didn't come, and eventually the button dimmed again. 'It looks like it's the stairs for us…seven flights of stairs.'

Rue and Fairfax had changed back into their robes and were now ready to ascend and face the day's work. Fairfax grumpily walked them back around the lobby and opened the door to the stairwell. He raised his head and stared straight up, his shoulders slumping. 'It's usually working on Mondays,' he said with a hint of whining. 'Why didn't the Sunday shift fix it?'

Mischievously, Rue grabbed him on the shoulder and said, 'Somehow we'll make it. The journey will be long and arduous, the perils great, but –'

'Oh, shut it already. You've got young legs.'

'Race you to the top, old man?'

'Not on your life. I'll be walking, thanks.'

Rue wasn't at all unhappy about having to walk up the stairs since it gave her more time to quiz Fairfax. He had cut her off despite saying that he'd answer all her questions, claiming that they couldn't expect Ajit and Vale – the fourth on their shift – to hold down the fort forever.

'So tell me about Ajit and Vale. I've never heard of them before,' Rue called behind her as they walked up the stairs. The stairwell was narrow, and she was outpacing Fairfax.

'You wouldn't have; they're not Aurors. We don't have enough Aurors to have four on every shift, so there are plenty of ordinary Magical Law Enforcement staff who pick up the slack – after taking a supplementary Auror course or two at Ministry expense. The pay is good, so there are always plenty of applicants for the so-called "Mystery Job" working alongside the Aurors.

'Ajit, well, he's a good sort of fellow. Really loves his kids. I'm sure he'll show you pictures and you'll hear about everything they've done since birth soon enough. He's absolutely invaluable here, as you'll soon discover.

'Vale – first name's Aeron, and that's what Ajit calls him, but I just can't get that familiar with him – well, he's an odd bloke. I don't much like him, to be honest, but he gets the job done, and I can't get him fired or transferred.'

'Why not?'

'Don't ask. I hate talking about management. They're bastards, whoever they are. Can't get anything reasonable out of them.'

Rue frowned, but kept walking. 'You don't know who management is?'

'Not allowed to. Security reasons. Another long story there; I'm sure we'll get round to telling you eventually – actually, I ought to let Ajit tell you about the Oven Incident. He loves it so.'

'Oven incident? What's—'

'Rue, please. No more questions, I beg of you.'

'Fine, fine.' Their feet pounded noisily up the metal stairs, occasionally eliciting a loud creak from them, but nothing worrying. They continued until they reached a metal door marked with a peeling white number seven at the top.

'Here we are,' said Fairfax. He pushed the door open.

The seventh floor hallway was completely different from what Rue had seen of the apartment building so far. It was very clean, with well-kept, dusty rose coloured carpet running the length of the hall and smoky green triangular light fixtures lining the pale peach walls. The combination wasn't entirely attractive, but nor was it offensive.

'He lives in room seven-oh-three, mostly,' said Fairfax. Rue could barely make out the doorway from where she stood in front of room seven hundred six. 'Ah, there's Ajit!'

Ajit had just turned the corner. 'Ramsden, there you are!' said Ajit in a deep, warm voice.

Rue stood up straighter and stared at the man, who looked to her more like a giant than a human. He was tall, brown, and muscular, with a head that looked almost absurdly small on such broad shoulders. The narrowness of the hallway only made him look larger, and Rue couldn't help but feel intimidated.

The large man strode toward them and slapped his hand over Fairfax's shoulder with enough force to make Fairfax tilt to the side. His eyes were wholly focused on Rue. 'Ah, and this must be that girlfriend you were telling me about!' Ajit took his hand off Fairfax and held it out to Rue. Her hand was swallowed by his in the handshake that followed.

'Good to meet you,' said Rue, her voice abnormally timid.

Ajit must have noticed, for he smiled at her kindly and said, 'There now, I don't bite. You're a sweet little thing, aren't you?'

'Not usually,' Fairfax replied, smirking. Rue frowned in mock indignation and elbowed him. The impolite comment managed to break the ice, though, and Rue found herself relaxing. Aside from his size, there wasn't anything about Ajit that made Rue feel unwelcome.

'I'm Ajit, one of the Senior Guards on Shift One. That's us,' he said.

'Ajit's also on Shift Five because he's crazy,' added Fairfax.

'You take two shifts? Why?' asked Rue. At Fairfax's disapproving look, her face reddened; it was hardly her business, after all, having met the man about a minute ago, but she couldn't help but be curious. Their shift was already forty-eight hours each week; who would take on more voluntarily?

'Oh, don't give her that look, Fairfax. She's only curious,' Ajit scolded him. Rue brightened up. 'It's a shorter shift – only another twelve hours – and the money helps. I've got eight kids, five at Hogwarts, and another on the way, so I do whatever I can to provide for them. And my Annie needs a new broom for Quidditch next year; she's Keeper _and_ Quidditch captain. Only the best for my Annie.'

Ajit's smile was large, toothy, and sweetly sincere. He didn't seem to have the slightest regret about his work schedule. Fairfax was shaking his head subtly in a way that Rue knew meant that he disapproved far more than he was letting on – but he didn't know anything about having to provide for a family, did he? Rue was annoyed with him.

'That's _wonderful_,' said Rue, gushing more than she would have otherwise to let Fairfax know that _she_ thought it was nice that Ajit thought so much about his family.

Fairfax, out of boredom rather than from having picked up Rue's signal, changed the subject. 'How's his mood today?'

There was no question at all about who Fairfax was referring to. Ajit automatically became more business-like, with his expression indifferent and his tone mechanical. 'Reasonable. He's been in with Aeron for the past half hour, though, so it might have changed. He tends to have mood swings.' The latter bit he clearly said for Rue's benefit; he was looking at her squarely. 'Be careful with him. He doesn't like it when his routine changes. He might give you a hard time until he adjusts.'

'She's been warned. Let's go,' Fairfax said, steering Rue around to face in the direction of room seven hundred three.

Ajit pressed himself against the wall so they could pass him. 'I'll stay out here so he doesn't get crowded. You'll probably want to send Aeron out too.'

Rue and Fairfax reached the door. It looked like ordinary solid wood, but Rue could feel that it was somehow enchanted. Fairfax didn't do anything but reach for the doorknob and turn it, though, so she supposed the spell or spells couldn't be affecting entry.

The door creaked loudly as it opened. Rue picked up a sliver of the conversation going on within, but it stopped too suddenly for her to make out anything cohesive. Fairfax stepped in ahead of her, blocking Rue's view almost entirely.

Her eyes were immediately drawn to the man sitting in a chair facing the wall to her right, but she couldn't make out much of him, so she acknowledged the man standing in the corner, who she assumed was Aeron Vale because he was holding a wand. Vale nodded; his eyes were dark, and he wouldn't look at her directly; his fists opened and closed several times, and his jaw moved back and forth in the same rhythm.

It was as though he wanted to hit her. Not hex her, but _hit_ her. Or maybe Fairfax? She shook such thoughts out of her skull; he was probably annoyed about being interrupted, that was all. Either way, he made Rue's skin crawl.

'Voldemort,' said Fairfax coldly, looking at the man in the chair. Rue shuddered instinctively, and Aeron did not disguise his smirk. 'Wipe that smile off your face, Vale. Get out. I'm taking over in here.'

Aeron responded, with only the barest civility in his tone, 'Yes, sir,' and stomped out, intentionally bumping Rue's shoulder on his way. Fairfax moved further into the room after Aeron left, and Rue managed to move out from behind him.

Her eyes locked onto _him_ instantly. In Auror training, Rue had learned the important steps for sizing up someone she was seeing for the first time. For a split second she found herself looking for his wand before she remembered that he wouldn't have one and moved on. She glanced at his eyes but couldn't look _into_ them as he seemed to be deliberately avoiding eye contact.

She strayed away from her training about determining his height and build and other basic features to examine his face – the face of the most notorious murderer in wizarding history. He was very pale, reminiscent of a vampire Rue had met once. It was usually difficult to determine the age of a wizard, but this man looked as though he were living every age at once: his hollow cheeks were twenty, the tilting corners of his lips fifty, and his roving eyes at least a hundred years more than that. Rue knew, intellectually, that he was around eighty, but there was something about him that was utterly inhuman, and thus utterly immune to any human concept of age.

Yet at the same time he was more human than she had expected in his appearance. Rue had heard rumours about him having catlike red eyes and a slits for nostrils, like a snake, and bone-white skin, but none of that was true at all. She supposed that it must have been embellishment for scary children's tales. No, he looked human to the untrained eye; the difference was more subtle than that.

Voldemort didn't take his eyes off Rue as he said, clearly addressing Fairfax, 'You brought me a present. I like it.' He licked his lips.

'She's the new guard,' said Fairfax harshly. 'And she happens to be spoken for.'

Rue, still watching _his_ face, saw the corners of his mouth barely twitch, and she felt more than knew that Fairfax had made a tactical error. Casually, he continued, 'Yours, then, is she? A little young for you, I think. If I'd known you were into that sort of thing, well, I could give you the names of some people…'

She could sense Fairfax's mind sputtering like an overheated cauldron before he even opened his mouth. 'That's quite enough!'

_Not clever enough to best him_. And she almost smiled because she knew that _he_ was almost smiling, even if he wasn't showing it. But then he looked up into her eyes, and she was startled so much by them that she reared back, blinking rapidly. They were an unremarkable brown colour, but that was where the dullness ended; there was brilliance there, and sharpness, and she almost thought she saw a tint of red in his eyes for a moment. And then, just like that, his eyes shut off, the shutters on the inside closing even though his eyelids remained open and unmoving. His expression was as neutral as a doll's.

'Hello, little girl. You needn't look at me like that – I don't bite.' Fairfax snorted, but Voldemort ignored him entirely. 'What's your name?'

'Rue, sir. Rue Moreland.'

Fairfax raised an eyebrow and mouthed _'Sir?'_ incredulously.

'You are related to Muireadhach Moreland, I take it?'

'He was my father, sir.'

'He was a good Auror. Aside from being alive, of course.'

'You can stop calling him "sir", Rue,' said Fairfax, clearly annoyed.

'I like it,' said Voldemort, waving his hand to dismiss Fairfax's comment. 'She shows the proper respect for her elders. I prefer "Lord", but one has to start somewhere. And where do you hail from?'

'Edinburgh.' At first she consciously left off the 'sir', but she could tell that displeased him, and Rue didn't see the point of making him angry. 'Sir.' She had moved from Edinburgh when she was a toddler, but her father had always been proud of his Scottish heritage, and he would string her up by her toes if he heard her give any other response.

'Edinburgh,' stated Voldemort mildly, giving no indication of whether he approved of this or not. 'Have you ever been to the Orkneys?'

Fairfax raised an eyebrow, obviously wondering where this line of questioning was going. Rue was curious as well. 'No, I've never visited there.'

'I went to one of the smaller northern isles once when I was your age to perform a spell. There was no one there at all…it was wonderfully singular. Then I went back in 1981, and what do you suppose I found?' He waited a few moments, and then his mood change remarkably quickly to fury, and he almost yelled out, 'Well, girl, don't stand there slack-jawed! Ask me what I found!'

Fairfax looked as though he was about to step in when Rue said, 'What did you—'

'Muggles! Everywhere! _Two_ of them!' Voldemort held up two fingers. He sounded annoyed (not angry, at least) and didn't seem to want a response, so Rue held her tongue when he paused. He continued, calmly, 'So I killed them, obviously. First I killed one – the old man. The old ones don't scream very well, you see…their vocal chords degrade along with the rest of their worthless husks…then I set upon the boy who was with him. I must say, I was fairly impressed…I think he held the record for the amount of time for a Muggle to be under Cruciatus before going insane. You can always tell that they're insane when they stop trying to scream…that means they can only scream on the inside anymore…'

He held onto the arms of his chair and leaned over towards her, and Rue felt ill as she looked into Voldemort's eyes. There was nothing but calculating evil in them now, and his smile was unnatural. 'And that is the only warning I shall ever give you, girl.'

At first she thought he meant the scolding he had given her, but quickly realized that he meant the story itself.

'Okay, you've just used up your creepy quota for the day,' said Fairfax, looking not at all phased by Voldemort's tale.

'I have to pee,' said Voldemort, just as casually. Rue could hardly believe this exchange was happening so rapidly after the story; she felt completely left behind, and struggled to push it out of her mind so she could catch up.

Fairfax's shoulders slumped. 'Now? You know Ajit is making lunch. Can't you wait?'

Voldemort looked away from both of them and turned his gaze toward the ceiling and leaned back in the chair until he was almost lying down. '_I have to pee-eee,'_ he said in a sing-song voice. '_I have to pee-eee, I have to pee-eee, I have to pee—'_

'All right, all right!' Fairfax threw up his hands in defeat. 'Rue, you don't know where the kitchen is yet, do you?'

Rue shook her head.

'You could just let me go on my own. I promise I'll be a good boy,' said Voldemort. His smirk said otherwise.

'You could at least _try_ to lie.' Fairfax sighed and turned to Rue. 'I've got to go get Ajit, Rue,' he said in defeat.

'Why can't _you_ take him?' she asked, panic evident in her voice. _You said you wouldn't leave me alone with him,_ she wanted to say, but it didn't seem right to quarrel in front of their prisoner. _It sure doesn't seem as though _he's_ the one imprisoned here, though._

'I'll only be a minute. No, less,' said Fairfax as he ambled backward toward the door. 'Just hold your wand on him while I'm gone.'

Rue took out her wand and looked worriedly back at Fairfax as he shut the door behind him. She could hear his quick footfalls moving away from the room.

Voldemort pushed himself gracefully out of his armchair, standing up to his full height. There was such a dignity and command to his presence at that moment that Rue couldn't believe that he was the same person who had been singing about having to pee less than a minute before.

He stood still, his hands in the pockets of his robes, and Rue kept her wand trained on him. Voldemort did not appear to feel at all threatened; he held his head high and looked down at her with a bizarrely peaceful smile. 'You have potential,' he said approvingly. 'Yes, I think you can stay.'

Rue's eyes followed him exactingly as he paced around his armchair. He didn't seem as though he desperately needed to use the loo. His expression was predatory. 'You should be alone with me more often if you want to learn. You _did_ come here to learn, didn't you?'

He was staring into her eyes, and Rue felt as though she were an open book to him. Yes, she was intensely interested in him, and at that moment she knew that he would have the answer to any question she asked about anything. 'Yes, I know why you're here. Everyone comes for different reasons, and I always know. We'll talk some time soon. I have many more stories.'

Then Voldemort sat back down in the chair, and an instant later the door opened. Rue jolted in surprise and swivelled around. She stiffly moved her wand arm down to her side.

Ajit walked into the room, followed by Fairfax. Voldemort stood up again immediately. 'Let's have a look,' said Ajit. He was halfway towards Voldemort before he turned to Rue. More gently, he told her, 'If he ever needs to go to the bathroom or do anything else that he wants to be alone for, then I need to inspect him first.'

He crossed the distance between himself and Voldemort and stared the smaller man in the eyes. Rue was struck by the size difference; Voldemort had seemed larger than life only a few moments before, but Ajit could make almost anyone look tiny. How was it that the situation here seemed to change so drastically minute by minute?

His gaze still locked with Voldemort's, Ajit continued, 'I need to check his intentions using Legilimency. If he means to do any harm to himself in there, I'll know.' Ajit gestured towards the hallway in the room. 'The bathroom is in the door on the left. He's the only one who uses it. We use the one in room seven-oh-one when we're on this floor.'

Voldemort seemed unimpressed. Their eyes stayed locked for several moments more. Then he tore his eyes away from Ajit's. 'Can I go now, then? Are you satisfied that I'm not going to drown myself in the toilet bowl?'

'I'll walk you there,' Ajit replied. He sounded oddly kind and patient as he spoke, as though he were talking to a child.

Voldemort sat back down on his armchair. 'I don't need to go to the bathroom anymore. You may go.'

Ajit rolled his eyes and walked out without a word. Fairfax came up behind Rue and whispered in her ear, '_Now you see what we have to put up with_.'


	4. Caesar

**A/N:** Thanks go out to Clara Minutes for beta reading this chapter and to everyone who have reviewed the story so far. This chapter was quite fun to write, so I hope it is equally fun to read -- especially the last bit!_**  
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_**Chapter Four: Caesar**_

Lunch break was what dreams were made of – now it was time to return to the doldrums of the day. Ron stretched his back as far as it could go, not satisfied until he heard a gentle crackle run along his spine, and then sat down. He twiddled his quill between his fingers; his mind had not returned to work just yet. He stared at the words on the report in front of him without reading them, trying to look engrossed as his mind wandered.

What to do after work? Ron smiled and thought of walking in the door to Bill's house and feeling the weight of his children slam into his legs. Susan went for the right leg, always, and she was getting so big now that she'd almost knocked him over once when she ran too fast to greet him. And Edward, who would have been named Fred if Charlie's boy hadn't taken the name first, a week before Edward's birth, even though it had been agreed that Ron would … who was ever so much like Fred in temperament, would hold out his small hand with the devil's smile on his face. Then Fleur would stomp over to complain about Edward's antics that day. And Ron would make a show of scolding him – but the boy was four, and what did Fleur expect, exactly?

Hermione always said he was too easy on Edward.

Ron sighed and got back to the task at hand. He heard the squeaking of the archivist's cart, the slow movement of its wheels rumbling against the floor, and hurried to finish. Ron had no bloody intention of taking a copy of the report on Mundungus down to the Ministry Hall of Records himself. It was a long, dull, crowded journey, and he'd have to pass that ugly witch of an archivist's secretary who made eyes at him and tried to engage him in conversation that he couldn't escape unless he was completely rude.

Ron cursed softly as the ink on his quill fell in a glob over the page, creating an illegible mess of an entire paragraph of work. He took out his wand and tapped it several times on the page while muttering a spell he'd heard Hermione use to clean up ink spills, but to his frustration, he ended up clearing off half the writing on the page. The cart was getting closer, and Ron cringed at the thought of listening to that awful witch gab about the eighteen uses of turkey giblets in beauty potions.

'Do you have anything for me to drop off, Mr Weasley?'

Ron groaned inwardly until his mind caught up to him and identified the calm, gentle tone of a familiar voice. He breathed a sigh of relief and almost smiled. 'Hey, Phi,' Ron greeted him, turning around in his seat, 'do you, er, think you could wait a few minutes? I accidentally erased part of my report.' It was Ron's lucky day, it seemed, for Phi was never in any great hurry, unlike other junior archivists who were always keen to finish pick-up duty as quickly as possible so they could go back to more _important_ work.

Phi, with a peaceful smile, said, 'Of course, Mr Weasley.' He then started to move the cart out of the way so others could pass by; a Department of Magical Law Enforcement officer who had been parading slowly behind Phi's cart gave him a rude look behind his back. Ron shot the official a rude look right back in Phi's defence.

After all, Phi had an excuse for being slow. He was only in his thirties, but anyone who spent a few minutes with the slow and deliberate Phi could tell that there was something wrong with him. His legs moved stiffly and unnaturally, and he was always skull-pale. Not to mention that his hair – white, nearly translucent wisps – made him look nearly eighty. Ron had never asked about it, because he didn't like to be rude, but there was certainly a story there.

Phi finished parking the cart, and the smell of hospital room antiseptic that always clung to Phi crept slowly into Ron's nostrils; he turned around and got to rewriting the missing paragraph.With all his focus on it, he finished quickly, but, unbidden, the thought struck Ron that if he wanted to know something about what was going on with Tonks on Fridays, then Phi, the only person in the office always keen to share gossip with him, would be the person to ask.

He turned around slightly until he could see Phi out of the corner of his eye and asked, 'Phi, would you happen to know where Tonks goes on Fridays?'

Phi's smile turned eager. 'I don't know exactly _where_, Mr Weasley, but not _here_. She has a top-secret assignment on Fridays between eight in the morning and eight in the evening – it's blacked out on her schedule, sir, which is why I know the times.'

'Right, standard blackout – that's standard,' said Ron. He flushed as he realized his redundancy, but Phi didn't even twitch. 'But you have no idea where she goes?'

'No sir. I'm sorry I can't help more.'

Phi looked truly distressed that he didn't know, as though he had failed in his duty to provide improper information. Ron smiled encouragingly. 'That's all right. It's none of my business anyway.' He grabbed the report off his desk and handed it to Phi, who took it reluctantly.

Then Phi's face lit up with the pride of discovery. 'Oh! I do know something you might be interested in!' he said quietly. 'There's been a murder! The Head Auror is looking over the information now, and he'll be assigning it to someone soon!'

Excitement coursed through Ron's veins, quickly stamped out by guilt at being excited over someone's murder. He turned slightly away from Phi and pretended to be interested in something on his desk as he asked, 'Who was it? Another Death Eater?'

Those were the best kind of murders, and Ron wouldn't feel nearly so guilty if it were true. There was a mystery killer, or killers, who had been slowly killing off the remaining Death Eaters still at large for the past decade. Alecto, the Carrows, Dolohov, Mulciber – and, most famously of all, Fenrir Greyback – had been allegedly murdered by a mysterious someone commonly referred to in the _Prophet_ as _The Muggle Avenger_.

That was the odd tie linking all the deaths; despite differing methods of murder, they were all killed without the slightest trace of magic. Dolohov had been pushed off a steep hill and had broken his neck; Alecto had bled to death after stepping into a bear trap set on the doorstep of her own secluded cottage, days before Aurors had tracked her down; Mulciber had been killed by hanging while hiding in his cousin's basement at a time when his cousin was incontestably at Diagon Alley.

And Greyback's death … well, that was best not spoken of or even thought about. The Aurors who had found the body had vomited at the scene. But regardless of how gruesome the murder had been, there hadn't been a trace of magic anywhere on or near the remains. Personally, Ron figured it was some wizard who was just being careful so he couldn't have his crimes traced back to his wand; the media only insisted it was a Muggle because it made the stories that much more intriguing.

'It's not _The Muggle Avenger_ this time, sir,' replied Phi, unabashedly eager. 'It's –'

The door to the Head's office slammed open, jarring everyone in the Auror Office from their work and conversations. They all looked up to see a furious Cormac McLaggen storming out. He made it several feet before he stopped abruptly and turned his head in the general direction of Ron's cubicle. 'Weasley! In my office, now!' McLaggen yelled. He then stomped back into his office and slammed the door shut.

The office slowly returned to its previous state, aside from those stationed around Ron's cubicle, who stared at him in sympathy. 'Bloody political appointees,' muttered Ron, standing up and glaring at the Head's office. As if McLaggen could tell a Dark wizard from a flobberworm … Head of the Auror Office had been a serious position at one time …

'Mr Weasley, I bet he'll give you the case!' said Phi, grinning from ear to ear at what he perceived as Ron's good luck, oblivious to the tension in the office.

'Yeah, Phi, maybe,' Ron replied. Shoulders slumped, he trudged off to his doubtlessly unpleasant meeting with the greatest idiot he'd ever met.

* * *

Lunch was delicious, as always – Ajit was an excellent chef, which was one of the few but compelling reasons why Voldemort allowed him to stay. None of them knew – except for a few, the ones that were his, and thus intractably boring now for their lack of challenge – exactly how much he was able to influence the hiring and firing decisions. It hadn't always been that way, but his influence had crept up slowly since the resounding crash ten years before.

The loss of his magic had been shattering, and he'd been in a wind tunnel since, being blown violently in the direction others chose for him, powerless to affect the most basic decisions like where he would go, what he would eat, who he would kill.

But he had fought consciously with all his might against it, and that decision itself had easily forced the cyclone gusts to dwindle to a spring breeze that he could easily resist – for those who wished to control him did not have his strength of will. Indeed, with his own breath – his words, his looks – he could now alter the course of the winds that pressed against him.

Yet that power had only come to him at a time when he realized it was meaningless. For none of it mattered on the most basic of levels; no matter what efforts he exerted on the guards, on the Ministry itself, they were not the ones imprisoning him. Thus the force of his determination had dwindled, and he had stayed here, without direction, for years, waiting for something out of his control to happen.

In ten years' time, could he not have found a way to escape? Yes, yes, of course. _But where would he go?_ His followers – oh, the shame, the abject shame. And surely, were he out and about in the Muggle world, he would need to hide from the Aurors looking to retrieve him and would certainly not have such a comfortable chair as this to sit in or such good food as Ajit's to eat while on the run.

So it was pointless to 'escape'. Potter had made sure of it. Surely he had been thinking 'He must know this is as good as he can have, this gilded cage!' when he had placed Voldemort there? Or perhaps he had thought, 'This is the greatest torment I can visit upon him – forcing him to live as a common Muggle, watching wizards and witches practice magic around him!'

He spent a lot of time wondering about Potter's intentions in placing him here.

But he hated thinking of that. It never went anywhere. He hadn't even seen Potter in ten years. Voldemort had thought that he'd at least stop by after the Oven Incident, but no, not a peep about it from Potter.

He wondered if Potter had even been informed about it. Did he bother checking up at all? Was his old nemesis even worthy of notice to Potter anymore? A surge of indignation, the likes of which he'd killed scores for before his magical castration, rose in his chest. Voldemort straightened in his chair, and he bit down on his tongue to distract himself from such unbearable thoughts. He could break out, cause some murder and mayhem among Muggles – _that_ would get Lord Potter's bloody attention!

He slumped in his chair. Oh, what was the point? He'd just end up back here, ignored, and for good reason, for he couldn't even cast a first-year spell anymore.

That was another thing he spent too much time thinking about. He would focus on the lightest thing he could find – a scrap of cloth ripped from his own robes, perhaps – and stare at it for an hour. _Wingardium Leviosa, Wingardium Leviosa, Wingardium Leviosa …_

_That's quite enough_, he scolded himself. Such thoughts were unproductive. Besides, his present situation was a good deal better than the decade he'd spent as an incorporeal cloud … though it felt more hopeless.

At least now he had toys. Speaking of which …

'Did you get exercised today?' asked Ramsden. Voldemort turned, unconcernedly, in his direction, his face blank.

They stared at each other for a few moments. 'You're going to make me ask Ajit, aren't you?' Ramsden said. He was far too easy to exasperate. It was fun, to a point, but fun wasn't why Voldemort kept Fairfax Ramsden around. The man was disrespectful and treated him as though he were a dog to be fed and walked and caged – and to top it all off, he was a Mudblood who acted like he was Merlin's gift to wizardkind. If Voldemort could pick any one of his guards to murder painfully, Fairfax would be the unlucky winner.

So why was Fairfax still around? Well –

'Did someone call me?' Ah, Ajit's dulcet tones. If only all the ones immune to Voldemort's myriad charms could be like Ajit. Quiet, respectful, good cook, thinks he's a better Legilimens than he actually is …

Well, but doesn't _that_ thought bring back painful memories? _Damn you, Snape – you're the first one I'll kill if I ever get my powers back –_ _no, _when. When_, not if._

'Yes, he's taken his morning constitutional,' Ajit replied. 'And he was very good about it, too, so don't antagonize him.'

'I wasn't _antagonizing_ him,' muttered Fairfax, shooting Voldemort a dirty look. Oh, how he would enjoy stabbing those eyes out. When he got his powers back, if Fairfax was in closer proximity than Snape …

The door opened again, and Aeron shuffled into the room, his head down. Voldemort could taste the usual aggression filtering into the air around him. Vale might study another ten years for Auror training, but he'd never pass the psych test. How Voldemort wished to thank whoever wrote that psych test; in the old days he had always made sure that the ones who failed knew where to find him, and they always – well, almost always – came.

Vale was a standard borderline psychotic with extreme aggression against females and men like Fairfax who thought themselves above him. He was abused as a child by both his mother and his father, most likely – and then Vale would likely abuse his children from whatever woman he ended up subjugating, and Voldemort would have ready-made followers who would trade their lives in for the chance to rip their parents' tongues out and make them eat them.

Ah, child abuse – the sin that keeps on giving.

'Your girl wants you to know that there's a dead, half-eaten rat on the third floor. Something's in the building.'

'You could stand to be more respectful, Vale. Her name is Rue; you can call her Miss Moreland, if you please.'

'Whatever,' growled Aeron. He glanced at Voldemort, and Voldemort gave him the expected sympathetic look. It reminded him of those boring old recruitment drives where he'd had to pretend to give a rat's carcass about the ambitions of newly-graduated Hogwarts students.

'It's probably just Caesar,' said Ajit, almost inaudible over the sound of Vale slamming the door on his way out. 'He came in earlier.'

Fairfax, perpetually grumpy about everything, replied, 'I thought we boarded up that cat's way in!'

'He must have gotten in another way.' Ajit shrugged it off with his own perpetual good humour. 'He's harmless. I don't know why you try to keep him out; he always comes back no matter what we do.' From outside the door came a yowl of protest, then insistent scratching at the door.

Voldemort eyed the door warily. He didn't like that cat. He didn't like cats in general – or any wildlife other than snakes, for that matter – but that cat was not an ordinary cat. Fairfax relented, muttering about damage to the door, and was about to open it when the door opened from the other side.

Rue stepped in, holding the giant cat in her arms. 'Isn't he adorable, Fairfax? _Aren't you just the cuddliest cat in the whole wide world?_' The last sentence was said in the cooing tones normally reserved for babies and kittens.

It was the ugliest cat Voldemort had ever seen. The massive ginger creature, cursed with a face that looked as though it had been in an unpleasant encounter with a wall, wrapped its paws around Rue's shoulders and purred. Its bottle-brush tail swept back and forth against her arms.

'Er, yeah, it's a great cat! Aren't you, boy?' Fairfax reached out to pet the cat, but one of its paws smacked him across the hand, leaving deep, bloody trails. It hissed at him, and Voldemort couldn't help but smirk.

'Fairfax, are you all right?' Rue put the cat down and examined Fairfax's hand.

The disgruntled cat, called Caesar by the Aurors, sidled over towards Voldemort's chair. He sneered at it; meanwhile, his heart rate spiked.

There was a difference between people wanting him dead, comprising the majority of wizarding Britain, and those few who could overcome their fear of the consequences and actually attempt to kill him.

Despite his protestations to the contrary, Voldemort had no desire to destroy this mortal form and spend years upon years – forever? It had felt that way, before – waiting for one of his followers to assist him in his resurrection. Particularly since Voldemort thought, as none of them did, that if he were resurrected, it wouldn't make anything better – he would still probably be without magic. He'd gone over the arithmantic equations in his head, and it seemed the most likely outcome.

The old fear of death seized him. He thought he had defeated it, long ago, but Potter had brought it back so strongly that now an uncommon house cat could bring it out in him.

Only now he was powerless prey.

_Not quite_. Voldemort gave the cat a haughty look. He would show no fear. He had evaded tens of assassination attempts before; even though he lacked magic now, he refused to allow a fat feline to be the death of him.

How ignominious that would be.

* * *

The look in Crookshanks' eyes as he sat down a foot from Voldemort's chair was one of malice. It wasn't the keen look of a hunter, no – it was the calculating appraisal of a murderer. Crookshanks knew that Voldemort knew, but he could afford to be cheeky while there were so many witnesses about.

Voldemort had tried to have him murdered before by the mean human he had passed in the hall. But Crookshanks was clever. Oh yes, he was clever … and he would wait. He was very, very patient. He would wait for just the right moment. He wouldn't make the mistake he had made with That Rat by moving too quickly, without a plan, and arousing suspicion from Hermione's mate.

He missed Hermione. But this was important. He was doing this for her.

He would wait. But first he would retrieve the cat treats from Ajit's pockets.


	5. Incidents

**A/N: **My apologies for taking _so _long with this chapter. I didn't realize it had been months and months since I posted. A combination of lots of work and lots of procrastination made it difficult for me to write last semester, but so far this semester is going much more smoothly so far, and my writing schedule is going according to plan for now.

No, there is no slash yet. Yes, there will be some later. This chapter does a lot to set up some important plot points. Thanks go out to my beta reader, Clara Minutes, and my ridiculously patient readers.

_**Chapter Five: Incidents**_

It was a delicate situation: a Muggle man murdered via the Killing Curse on a crowded London street in broad daylight. The man, as yet unidentified, had toppled over like a tilting plank into other Muggles, the murderer had Apparated away, and the noise had drawn even more attention. When Ron got there, pedestrians were still shrilling that the man had been killed in a flash of green light. He wondered how the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee would wriggle out of this one.

Ron, decked out in the Muggle clothes that every Auror had to keep in the office – selected by Hermione, thank goodness, so he blended in well – approached a man in police garb and flashed his badge. He didn't know what the badge meant, but it worked as a signal to the Muggle to let him through. Ron awkwardly swooped under the yellow tape and was immediately assaulted by information as the Muggle officer walked with him toward the body.

'No clear cause of death, sir,' said the officer quickly. 'Witnesses say they saw a bright flash of green light as the victim was killed. We haven't had a case like this in –'

'Ten years, yes,' interrupted Ron, uninterested in what the man had to say. He already knew what had killed the Muggle, and Muggle officers were completely daft at investigating magical murders. 'I'll take it from here.'

'It's like that Smythe murder,' the officer went on in a whisper. 'Never was solved, that.'

Not by the Muggles – to wizarding Britain, the culprit had been all too obvious. But no wizard or witch since the second war had had the audacity to commit public murder, let alone in the Muggle world.

McLaggen must have been under Imperius to give him this case, and Tonks would die of jealousy when she found out.

'Do you think it's the same fellow?' the officer asked.

'The same fellow as what?'

'As the Smythe murders, of course!' The officer looked at him dubiously.

Ron shrugged. 'How would I know? I haven't even seen the autopsy report yet.' Not that he needed to. The war was over, and its main antagonists were dead or in Azkaban or across the Channel. Aside from You Know Who; as the _Prophet_ so eloquently put it, he was Wherever, or Elsewhere, or Merlin Knows Where. But Wherever wasn't here, and whoever did this was probably someone completely unaffiliated with the atrocities ten years ago.

Maybe.

The body was already gone. There was nothing that marked the location as a crime scene except for the useless white outline of where the body had landed. 'So…clues?'

'None we can find. The witnesses all say the same bloody thing: flash of green light, disappearing man.'

'Any description of the disappearing man?' He was the murderer, of course.

'Witnesses say he was wearing a black robe down to his ankles. Face was covered. Probably in some cult or other. White male, above six feet tall, lanky. That's all we've got.'

Wonderful. So Ron was supposed to investigate…what, exactly? 'Sounds like you've caught me,' he joked.

The officer's expression was blank. 'Eh?'

'Never mind.' Muggles. No sense of humour. And Hermione would kill him if she caught him thinking that.

Ron didn't see anything else to do here. His next task was to slip the corpse away from the Muggles without causing a stir. He probably wouldn't learn anything from it, with the cause of death being so blatant, but it was protocol, and it might at least give him some clue about the victim's identity.

'Right, off I go then,' he muttered to himself, leaving the police officer gaping at his rudeness.

* * *

'The Oven Incident,' Ajit began dramatically, ending with a plump pause. He grinned. 'I hardly ever get to tell this story. Let me think for a minute…I want to start it off just right…' 

'All right. Well. In the old days before the Oven Incident Voldemort had to cook for himself. Remember the kitchen you saw when Fairfax showed you around Voldemort's apartment?'

Rue remembered. Aside from the tiled floor, it was impossible to tell it was supposed to be a kitchen. 'It was gutted,' remarked Rue.

'It wasn't gutted before from what I've heard. There was an oven, a stove, a sink, and he used them. He had to. Back then the manager of this place was an Auror called Torvald von Rot. He was tough…punished Voldemort for any bad behavior. Well, you can guess _he_ didn't take too well to that.'

Rue couldn't think of any Auror named Torvald von Rot, which seemed to bode ill for where the story was headed.

'I think Voldemort must have been waiting for von Rot to visit personally. Management usually just tells us what to do from afar, takes care of the budget, mundane things like that. But one day von Rot popped in for a surprise inspection, and Voldemort was cooking his dinner at the time.'

'Von Rot went into the kitchen and dismissed the guards. Of course, when the Aurors heard a scream, they thought it was Voldemort.'

'I'm guessing it wasn't?'

Ajit shook his head slowly and emphatically. 'No. The scream was quick, so no one thought anything too awful was going on in there. One of the guards heard the oven door shut, and then there was some banging, but that didn't last long, either.'

Rue's stomach lurched as she realized where this story was headed. She should have known from what the incident was called. 'Please, before you go on…tell me he didn't…'

'Fairfax always tells this story better,' said Ajit, frowning pensively. 'How did you already guess? The guards went in after a while to check that everything was okay, and in the oven –'

'Gross!'

'Turns out he chopped him up beforehand to fit him in, but he still had some trouble closing the door –'

'Thank you!' cried Rue, unable to shake the image of dismembered limbs. 'That's enough, really!'

'Sorry,' Ajit said, his tone sincere. 'It is your first day, but it's better that you know why we have our wands close at hand at all times. No one knows exactly what happened, but it's safe to say that von Rot didn't keep to the First Grab Rule. Sometimes I find myself getting relaxed around here because nothing ever happens; it's important to remember what can happen if you are overconfident.

'And that's why no one knows who management is anymore and why whoever it is never visits. It seems paranoid now, but after the Oven Incident, the guards thought there might still be a spy network around working for Voldemort. They thought he might have been informed secretly about von Rot's arrival so he could plan the murder.'

Ajit shook his head. 'They don't realize what he is. He doesn't need extra time to plan. He's probably got all our deaths worked out hundreds of times over.

'But it was just a year after the war, and everyone was jumpy, so the Ministry decided that the identity of management would be kept secret. That way Voldemort can't find out who to kill for bad treatment. Even _we_ don't know who's running this place.'

He chuckled softly. 'But Voldemort has been treated much better since then, so I suppose management must still be worried about…retribution.'

Rue nodded, though she was barely listening, still concentrated on the story Ajit had told about the first manager's murder. She could easily (too easily) picture the end result of the deed. But…But the clever man in the armchair? She tried for a moment to see it, but failed. He didn't seem like the type. 'Was he bloody?' she asked out of the blue.

Ajit looked at her curiously. 'Who?'

'Voldemort.'

'Voldemort? I suppose so. I never asked.'

Rue looked away and pretended to be engrossed with inspecting the dust on one of the dressers she was supposed to be cleaning. She couldn't see _him_ bloody; it was such a Muggle way of killing someone, and even a Muggle would find it dirty. She could hardly imagine his hands chopping vegetables, let alone bone.

It couldn't have really happened the way Ajit said. Maybe the story got twisted through many tellings throughout the years.

'I really did upset you, didn't I?' said Ajit. 'I'm surprised you haven't heard worse. You _are_ an Auror?'

'Yes,' she replied, turning around and smiling to reassure him. 'I'm fine. I was just thinking. What were you saying before about Annie's big game last year?'

Ajit immediately looked even more excited than he had during the telling of the murder. He drew a bundle of pictures out of his pocket too large to fit without magic and immediately picked out just the right one: a picture of his oldest daughter speeding vertically upward on a broom with both Bludgers tickling the twigs of her broom. He launched into a description of the game, and Rue paid attention as best she could with a mystery on her mind.

* * *

It was just a body. There was nothing remarkable about it. It was stiff, dead, standard. The soul once residing within it had left few telltale signs of his identity: his slacks were plain brown, his shoes of average quality. His hair was mousey brown and combed to each side unattractively. 

His pockets were full of odds and ends. Unfortunately his wallet was not among them; the man only had some change. It was the worst day for the man to have left his wallet at home, at least from Ron's perspective, because there was nothing else to identify the body. He might have to wait until someone noticed this boring man was missing before he found out the victim's identity.

The most interesting object the man had been carrying was some Muggle thing Ron couldn't identify. It was small and more or less rectangular, with two almost finger-sized holes. He inspected it closer and found that the holes were really two little spinning wheels. He rotated one of the wheels with his finger and watched as the other moved at the same pace. Ron looked at the side of the object and noticed a thin strip of some Muggle material looping into both wheels.

He didn't have a clue what it was, and he didn't want to damage it, so Ron took out a piece of parchment and proceeded to draw a rough picture of it to take with him. His work day was almost over, so he decided he might as well ask Hermione about it when he got home.

Among the gum wrappers and receipts was a blue ballpoint pen. Ron inspected the writing on the side of it: it read _RASP Europe_. Next among the corpses' ex-belongings was a piece of string; he put that aside, but he wasn't about to throw anything out when he was this desperate for clues.

There was nothing else. Ron was left to solve the case with an acronym, a piece of string, and a Thingy – the term thrown around the office for odd Muggle objects.

Yet he didn't feel particularly discouraged. He'd solved cases with less information than this…not as an Auror, but back at Hogwarts with Harry and Hermione…

Ron checked his watch and noted with glee that it was two minutes to five. Thoughts of the case took flight as images of his children marched forward. Crumpling the picture of the Thingy into his pocket, Ron left the corpse in its new home in the Ministry's underground morgue, certain that he could already smell dinner.

* * *

Voldemort had been a pain in the arse all day – even more than usual. It always seemed like more than usual to Fairfax. The ex-Dark Lord had made little biting comments about Rue ever since Fairfax sent her off with Ajit. Fairfax had passed Ajit a note telling him to keep her occupied until the end of their twelve-hour shift; he thought she'd been around Voldemort quite enough for her first day. 

Which had left Fairfax in the unenviable position of putting up with both Voldemort and Vale until eight in the evening. He'd thought he might explode at them both by the end of it, but Voldemort would have made him pay for days if he'd put a Silencing Charm on him. The petulance of the man was not to be underestimated.

Fairfax rubbed his temples with one hand, staving off a headache, as he took a relieving sip of brandy. Lord knew he hadn't taken the guard job by choice, and he'd thought that manoeuvring Rue into his shift with him might make it all more bearable…but it hadn't that day. Fairfax thought about Tuesday and wondered how long he could get Ajit to watch Voldemort while he and Rue…well, there were _plenty_ of rooms in the building, and Ajit owed him for putting up with Voldemort all day while he babbled on about his kids.

And if Fairfax was fired due to negligence, what did he care? He was rich. He didn't even pour his own brandy, for God's sake, yet he spent his days catering to a mentally ill senior citizen. And if Rue was fired, what of it? She'd only become an Auror because of that overbearing father of hers.

Anyway, she wouldn't have to work after they were married. Not that they were engaged yet, but she had a good, solid wizarding name that had come out smelling like a rose even as most of the old pureblood families had fallen into disgrace. She wasn't a pureblood herself, but her name still carried weight, and Fairfax knew the value of a good name. He had one in the Muggle world, but it was utterly worthless in the magical one. Marrying Rue would up his standing. Maybe he'd even take her name as his own.

Besides, he liked her – love would be too strong a word, but he was genuinely fond of the girl – and the sex was good. They were a good match. Once he quit, he'd marry her and settle down, have a few kids, and send them off first to Hogwarts and then to get MBAs on forged Muggle university credentials so they could manage both ends of the family business properly.

But he couldn't quit being an Auror just yet, nor could he contrive to get himself fired. Unfortunately it was his assignment, and his alone, to watch that annoying old homicidal coot for the sake of the Organization.

He hated it, but every time he thought of quitting, he was forcefully reminded that much of his imagined future prosperity hinged on the Organization's success. His family's Muggle business was struggling to expand further, while Fairfax's infant ventures into wizarding business were too dependent on his partners' connections.

Speak of the devil. The fire in front of Fairfax thundered, and his partner's face made its expected appearance in the flames.

'Ramsden,' said the man.

'Malfoy,' greeted Fairfax in kind. 'Am I to understand that the barriers to my entry into the cauldron market will soon be relaxed?'

'_Our_ entry,' corrected Malfoy, his tone playful. 'I'm the one doing the legwork.'

Fairfax disdainfully swallowed the combative remark that brought to mind. The bastard probably hadn't moved from his cushy manor in France all day; Malfoy wasn't doing the legwork so much as the Floowork.

The Malfoy surname had fallen in stature from what it had been, but there were still some who, out of respect for the name or fear of it, would bend a few rules or cut through some red tape when a Malfoy asked for it. Fairfax gave capital and public respectability to their joint ventures while Malfoy fronted his influence and private respectability among well-placed purebloods in the Ministry. It was a decent arrangement. On paper.

'Of course,' conceded Fairfax. 'Ours. So, the cauldron market?'

'Things will progress smoothly from here on.'

'And what about our potion ingredient imports?' Fairfax liked to diversify.

'I've encouraged customs to hurry them along.'

'Excellent. I'll notify my – _our_ – distribution network.'

'You do that.'

Fairfax didn't know what else there was to say. His meetings with Malfoy were usually brief. He couldn't think of anything else he needed to know. 'Same time next week, Draco?'

'Of course.' Malfoy's face disappeared from the flames without so much as a by-your-leave, and Fairfax was left smouldering over the fact that his _precious_ partner was getting so much out of their arrangement for so little effort.

Once the Organization's plans bore fruit, he would be all too happy to kick Draco's arrogant arse out the door. Then Fairfax would be rolling in money and respect, and all his wasted days watching Voldemort wouldn't seem so wasted anymore.

Fairfax didn't hear the footfalls of one of his servants, so he was startled when the man said, 'Sir, a package for you. It just arrived.'

Fairfax looked up at the clock above the hearth; it was midnight. 'Bring it here,' he said. He took the package: it was small enough to fit into his hand and wrapped in brown paper tied with string.

His breathing slowed as his eyes focused on the string – that, along with the shape of the package, left Fairfax no room for doubt about what it was. 'You may go,' he said, trying to sound calm, but the man had already left the room.

Fairfax struggled to snap the string until he realized his foolishness and took out his wand. He tapped it on the package, and the knot compliantly slipped open.

The string fell into his lap as he unwrapped the brown paper. Inside was a cassette tape, unlabeled and dingy grey. Fairfax smiled and ran his fingers over the hard plastic in satisfaction. _This_ was what he had been waiting for; the tension of the day slipped away just like the cassette tape slipped easily into the player.

Fairfax listened for several seconds to the gentle hiss of the tape before he heard Oblivion speak.


	6. Observations

**A/N: **Thanks again, Clara, for beta reading, and thanks to everyone who has reviewed the story so far, because I'm a sucker for reviews. Here's chapter six in all its moping Harry, creepy OC, contemplative Hermione, and mischievous Voldemort glory.

_**Chapter Six: Observations**_

_Sixteen Days Before the Second to Last Day in August, 2007:_

Yellowing memories of the Quidditch locker room as a place of anticipation, trepidation, and celebration rallied most viciously when it was squarely the opposite. Though Harry counted on the shouts of the coach and the hot glares of his teammates after practice, his reflexive recollections of laugher and pats on the back stuck him like pins.

There was talk of being traded. There didn't need to be – Harry knew the cost of failure as his name alone failed to draw the old crowds – but the whispers were growing in volume as the _Prophet's _criticism stormed.

The locker room was an isolated place for Harry now; he dressed silently in a corner, because he was unwelcome around the rest of the team. He used to try pretending he was somewhere else, but no place in his life, past or present, could be thought of joyfully. Memories of Hogwarts, the Quidditch pitch, and the Burrow only added to his sense of displacement and pointlessness.

The coach got the team's attention with a booming call to order. He told them that the Doctor was there to see them, and before he could continue, the team shouted out a blistering protest. 'I don't give a damn about your bloody whining! Ministry orders! Nothing you can do about it if you don't want our team license revoked!'

Harry didn't protest. It would do him no good. He shuddered unnoticed in his corner and shut his locker with a shaking hand. His teammates fought to get to the front of the line – to get the Doctor's prodding over with – or to the back of the line – to delay their fate. Harry let himself be shuffled into the middle, not caring one way or the other.

'Potter, what d'you reckon?' asked Brookes. It didn't matter that Harry was out of favour; at this moment, they were all equally screwed, and some, like Brookes, would persistently carry on conversation to stave off nervousness.

'Could be worse,' said Harry. A brief fantasy of his own death from medical malpractice flashed in his eyes, and he smiled a little. It would solve a lot of problems, and it took all the fear out of death when you weren't expecting it to happen.

Brookes persisted. 'Think it'll be blood or tissue?'

'Maybe both,' Harry replied with disinterest. He hoped Brookes would stop bothering him with questions if he failed to commiserate. But for his part, Harry hoped for a tissue sample. That was always done by the Doctor's assistant, who was more pleasant than the Doctor himself. And nothing good had ever come of Harry's blood.

'Worst part is that creepy Muggle,' Brookes concluded quietly.

The Doctor was a Muggle, and Harry kept telling himself this. Samples went into phials that went into some lab miles away. The_ Prophet_ never reported a word about it even despite the oddness of a Muggle doctor even knowing about the magical world, let alone practicing in it. Muggle doctors were only slightly above morticians on the list of people wizards liked to avoid, and this particular doctor didn't improve on that impression. But the players were told to keep their mouths shut. And Harry did, because he had no particular reason to care what the Ministry was up to.

The coach came back – Harry hadn't realized he was even gone – and the first question from the first person in line was, 'Tissue?'

The coach nodded.

'Blood?'

The coach nodded again, and Brookes grabbed Harry's arm in fear.

* * *

The Doctor was an old man. He stood unnaturally straight, as though fighting the hunch of the elderly, and his wrinkled red-rimmed eyes were obscured by large glasses with precisely circular lenses. His silver hair was parted exactly down the middle morning, noon, and night, and he checked it often, not out of vanity, but because he hated disorder in all forms. 

His sampling and measurement procedures were faultless – due to compulsion, not pride. He had rarely spoken since the end of his childhood. 'Speech lacks symmetry,' he said coldly to a particularly gabby Quidditch player. That was all he said throughout the repetitive procedures until Harry Potter's turn came. Silence was always symmetric; the beginning had been silent and so would the end.

Then Potter sat on the bed covered in thin paper in the makeshift doctor's office, which only the Doctor ever used. Wizards, he understood, practiced medicine differently; the Doctor was indifferent to this.

He peppered Harry with queries like, 'Have you experienced discomfort in the past month?' and, 'List your main dietary intake for the past month,' and, 'Have your magical abilities been consistent in the past month?' Potter's responses were as brief as possible, which the Doctor didn't mind, because the questions were of interest to the Ministry for Magic, not to him. The Doctor cared only for samples.

The Doctor took short but complete notes, always filling each line from the leftmost side to the rightmost. Even if he had to squeeze a word in, the lines were of consistent length – he was stringent about this, and insisted that his assistants take notes in the same way. Otherwise he could not read them.

When a line ended, the Doctor wrote the next with his other hand. Doing so was instinct to him. Potter stared as he switched hands, and the Doctor added this observation to his notes, because he did not see his own behaviour as unusual at all.

When the questions were over, the Doctor proceeded with his sampling. He took the blood sample first, as that required no magical intervention from his assistant. The Ministry insisted that the tissue sampling be done magically, as the magical procedures were less invasive and caused less pain. The Doctor did not like leaving his sampling to others, but at least it would get done. He paced with his eyes on the floor to ensure perfect steps while he waited.

His assistant waved his wand cheerily, and Potter chuckled at a joke. 'This is a medical procedure,' said the Doctor scornfully. Jokes were wasteful. The assistant's face fell, and he was quiet for the rest of the extraction.

He would not see his favourite patient for another sixteen days; the thought of _him_ brought what passed for a smile to the Doctor's face. By the end of the month, he would have everything he needed to begin the next round of experimentation. The Doctor did not like to speculate on feelings, but he was unusually confident about the upcoming seventh round.

'Show Mr Potter out,' said the Doctor to his assistant, 'and bring the samples to Lab 13 this afternoon.' As he left, he glanced at the waste bin, where the samples from the other Quidditch players had been thrown.

They were of no interest to him. Riddle and Potter were the only ones who mattered, couldn't the magic Ministry see? 'And take out the trash.'

* * *

Hermione twiddled the folded scrap of paper in her hand and tried to determine where it fit – if anywhere at all – into the slow but accelerating degeneration of affairs in the wizarding world. Hardly anyone seemed to have noticed the slide – least of all Ron – and she hadn't yet spoken of it to anyone. Truth be told, she was a little afraid to. 

Someone in the Ministry must have noticed by now. She really thought they must have. How could she be the only one to see it? Hermione acknowledged her own cleverness, but she was not the only clever person with her eyes open.

Maybe this time she was grasping for straws. She opened up the scrap of paper and looked again at the drawing inside. It was a very rough sketch of an audio cassette, as Hermione had informed Ron over dinner the night before.

She was bursting to know what was on it, and though she knew Ron couldn't tell her without breaking some rules, no one would really notice, would they. Mr Weasley had told his wife things he shouldn't have, and she would likely have scolded him if she'd known. The thought of them – the in-laws she'd never thought of as less than family, the ones who hadn't lived to see her wedding – cued a pang of loss, and Hermione put them out of her mind.

When had it started? When had she begun to notice? Her enquiries had taken the form of several owls to the Ministry and several informal inquiries through old friends. What she'd got back was a Ministry owl stuffily telling her to mind her own business and a much more interesting note days later written in cramped handwriting that struck her as familiar. She hadn't yet identified the writer, but as he had specifically asked her not to seek him out, she hadn't tried _very_ hard.

_Something is coming. You have until the 20th of May to stop it. No one else will try. Further information would result in my death and probably yours. _

_Do not try to find me. Look for tapes._

The twentieth of May was far away. He hadn't even said the year, but Hermione assumed that he meant 2008. The date itself had meaning – too much – already; it was the anniversary of Harry's final duel with Voldemort, and every year came the old debate. Even _he_ could not live forever, some brave and insightful person would say, so we may as well off him now and deal with the consequences. Others, the majority, would feel a tiredness that hadn't ever gone away after years of peace, and they would tell the brave and insightful to sod off until next year. Each time it happened the result was the same: divisions, bitterness, and the scabs on old wounds getting picked off again, never healing.

The final sentence of the letter had mystified her until now, but finding a Muggle audio tape on a corpse couldn't be a coincidence (she hoped). There would be a clue on it, and Hermione would solve the mystery, as always.

'Will I be too late?' she blurted out, staring blankly at her hands. She took out her wand, pointed it at a quill on her desk, and said, '_Wingardium Leviosa.'_

The quill lifted obediently, but Hermione did not feel relieved. She flicked her wand and allowed the quill to fall.

_'Wingardium Leviosa,'_ she said again. The quill lifted up just as before. Hermione repeated her actions many times, and anyone who might have seen her then would have wondered if she was entirely sane.

On the forty-fourth try, the feather refused to lift. Hermione took out a piece of paper from the top drawer of her desk and jotted down the date and the number. On the paper were more dates and numbers in a column; some were smaller, but most were larger. She had been taking notes for four months now; the first time it had taken seventy-seven spells before failure, and she chalked that up to being tired of casting by that point. But she hadn't reached such a high number since May.

More complicated spells had higher rates of failure. The secretary in the outer office had replaced her wand twice in three months, each time claiming it had gone bust and blaming Ollivander's always advancing years. And some people were being affected faster than others – but Hermione couldn't bring herself to speculate where she herself fit on the curve.

The only related event that had hit the _Daily Prophet_ was the decrease in the size of the entering classes at Hogwarts and the corresponding increase in Squib rates. This alone was enough to worry wizarding parents with small children; now, whenever a child showed his or her first sign of magic, such a fuss was raised that the fireworks could be seen for miles. The Ministry was hesitant to crack down on the practice with elections on the horizon, even if the Muggles might notice.

There was another more worrying story the _Prophet_ had not reported. Hermione made mental note to take up the cause of media independence as soon as all this was over. McGonagall had told her all about it over tea. There had been a protest incident at Hogwarts as wizarding parents with children who hadn't received Hogwarts letters shouted and pounded at the gates, demanding to speak to the Headmistress, insisting that a mistake had been made. But there had been no mistake, to McGonagall's sincere regret.

'And,' McGonagall had whispered quietly, 'there were two students who seemed to have become Squibs over the summer, and one was going into her fourth year. Nothing of the like has ever happened in all my years at the school. I tried to get the Ministry's attention, but they only said they were working on the problem.'

Loudly, the Headmistress had said, 'Working on it! What am I supposed to tell that poor girl?'

Hermione peered at her wand. She knew she was losing her magic – but maybe it would be years or decades before it happened. Maybe the decline would stop entirely. Maybe – she cringed at her own grasping desperation – maybe the planets were in some nasty alignment and everything would return to normal once Saturn left the sixth house or the Moon entered Scorpio or some nonsense like that.

Or maybe it would all be lost by the next horrible twentieth of May.

* * *

Rue was struggling to find a proper rhythm for herself in her new work. When Voldemort was made to run a 'constitutional', as Ajit called it, on the fifth floor, she and Aeron were left outside with little to do but clean. Fairfax said she wasn't missing anything, but Rue couldn't help but wonder what _he_ looked like running around. It didn't seem like an activity he would enjoy. 

Fairfax told her that he and Ajit always took Voldemort for his run. 'He's not a morning person, and he hates being ordered around. Add those together, and he can be pretty pissy. Ajit's a basketful of patience, so he's all right with it – even likes to run around with him. I just keep my wand trained on the bugger the whole time so he doesn't try anything.'

'So why do you make him run in the mornings if he's not a morning person?' Rue asked him, wondering why Fairfax would borrow trouble that way.

Fairfax made a displeased face as though he'd smelled a skunk. 'I prefer to get it over with. Exercising him is the worst part of the job – among others.'

Rue smirked. Fairfax was awfully negative about guard duty. Rue was already feeling the monotony set in, but not when she was near _him_. _He_ was the most interesting person she'd ever met, and if what he'd said the day before was true, he was willing to talk to her.

After his constitutional, Voldemort showered. The place never seemed so dull to Rue as it did then; they were just a handful of magical folk doing absolutely nothing in the middle of Muggle London. She made conversation with Ajit while Fairfax made the rounds to check the doors. The talk was pleasant enough – Ajit didn't seem to know how to be unpleasant – but she felt disjointed and out of place like a planet without a star to orbit.

'It's odd without him, isn't it?' Ajit said quietly, noticing Rue's malaise and accurately guessing the cause. 'It's like we have no purpose here.' Then he smiled a little wryly. 'He'll be back to make trouble soon enough. Chin up. If anyone knew we were missing him…'

Aeron kept to himself. He didn't seem to know how to do anything else. Ajit tried to draw him into conversation, and Aeron laughed a little at a tale about Ajit's boy jumping onto the roof to escape bedtime, but overall he was reserved and, in Rue's opinion, creepy. But sometimes he looked like he wanted to join in their conversation, opening his mouth a little and then closing it before sound could get out, so maybe he was only very shy.

Rue was glad when Voldemort walked in and took his customary seat in his armchair. She wondered what he did for entertainment; surely he didn't sit in that chair all day? But Ajit and Aeron didn't seem to expect anything else from him. Ajit went into the bathroom to clean up – Rue volunteered, but Ajit shook his head and smiled. 'Never know what sort of mess you'll find in there,' he said cheerfully. 'He likes to write on the wall with shampoo.'

'I haven't done that in ages,' said Voldemort with a fake pout.

Ajit chuckled. 'If by ages you mean last week.' He turned to Rue and explained, with some self-deprecation, 'I'm kept around for my cooking and my cleaning charms! It'll only take me a minute!'

Ajit left, but was back almost immediately. He looked uncharacteristically stern. 'What did you plug the toilet with?' he demanded. Rue looked down the hall and noticed that water was seeping into the carpet near the bathroom door.

'Toothpicks stuck together with toothpaste,' Voldemort replied in a flippant manner.

'We took the toothpicks away months ago. Where did you get them from?' Voldemort's only response was a challenging little smile. 'Either tell me on your own, or I'll have to drag it out of you.' Ajit sounded reluctant to use Legilimency, but his eyes started to shine.

'I hid a few handfuls in the vent,' Voldemort answered smoothly mere moments before Ajit could make good on his threat.

'Oh.' Ajit looked surprised. 'I thought I cleaned out the vent in there last week.'

'Where else would I get them?' asked Voldemort, sounding innocently curious. On the other side of the room, Aeron had a superior smirk on his face, but his expression turned dour again when he noticed Rue staring at him.

Fairfax banged the door open and stormed in. 'We've got water leaking down two floors! What did that bastard do _this _time?!'

'Toothpicks in the toilet,' Ajit replied. He moved back to the bathroom with Fairfax, who glared daggers at Voldemort as he passed. Down the hall, Rue heard Ajit say, 'I can clean up the water easily enough, but the toothpicks will take a while.'

'I'll help,' said Fairfax immediately, though with a note of resignation. 'I'll start off with the water damage on the lower floors.'

He moved toward the door to leave the room, but before he made his exit, Fairfax walked toward Voldemort's chair and, hands resting triumphantly on his hips, said, 'You've just won yourself an escort to the bathroom for the next month! How d'you like that, eh?'

Fairfax's twisted smirk made it clear he expected Voldemort to be angry at this. Voldemort, however, only replied in monotone, 'There's a comb and an old toothbrush down there too.'

Fairfax furiously stomped to the door and slammed it behind him as he left. Ajit came out of the bathroom soon after and gave Voldemort a very disappointed look. 'I don't know why you did that. It took you months to earn back bathroom privileges after last time.'

Voldemort threw up his hands as if to discard responsibility. With a little smirk, he said, 'It was an uncontrollable urge. Naughty little voices in my head made me do it.'

Ajit ignored the silly response. 'I know you're bored, but that's no excuse for bad behaviour. We'll talk about this later after I've calmed down.' With that, Ajit went back to the bathroom and shut the door.

'He seems perfectly calm to me,' Rue couldn't help saying. Her father wouldn't have been so calm a _month_ after the fact.

Voldemort looked up at her dryly. 'Oh, he's furious. He might even give me a stern scolding and put me in time out.' After a few moment's contemplation, a grumpy look came over his face, and he added, 'I suppose he'll be too busy to make me pudding today. Aeron!'

Aeron stood a little straighter as his name was called. 'Go.' Aeron unquestioningly obeyed, walking out of the room with only a moment's jealous glance at Rue, and Rue's mouth fell open as she wondered just _who_ was supposed to be in charge here.

As soon as Aeron was out of sight, Voldemort shifted in his chair, and Rue felt again, keenly, how quickly the situation changed here and how hopeless she was to keep up. Should she go get Ajit or run after Aeron? But she wasn't supposed to leave Voldemort alone, was she? Rue was sure that anyone else would know what to do, but she was left standing like an idiot waiting to be chopped into pieces and shoved in an oven.

Rue held tightly onto her wand as he made himself more comfortable and at the same time more threatening, his eyes sharp and his fingers intertwined. 'I hope I didn't give up my bathroom privileges and my pudding in vain. You have questions; I have answers. Ajit's become an expert plumber over the years, so do be quick about it.'


	7. Manipulations

**A/N:** My beta reader, Clara Minutes, did another spectacular job that helped me cut about a thousand words off this chapter, so kudos to her. I've also received some really awesome reviews for this fic so far -- you know, the ones that say more than "lol", the ones that actually tell me how much readers are enjoying the story and like the characters and plot -- and I'm really encouraged by them, so thank you very, very much!_**  
**_

_**Chapter Seven: **__**Manipulations**_

Questions, if posed to a more foolish person than Voldemort, were instruments of power. But he already knew what he intended to tell Rue – the trick was making her think she'd asked for it.

She was thinking. The relative slowness of others' minds was a constant frustration, but he tried to be patient, as he had learned to be in the past few tedious years. Finally Rue asked, 'I want to know what _really_ happened when that Auror – von Rot – was killed here.'

Voldemort stamped down a sudden surge of panic. _No; surely she hasn't figured it out,_ he realized – her gaze was curious, not accusatory. She knew nothing.

'That's morbid of you,' he answered cautiously. His face was a mask of reluctance, as though it wasn't pleasant for him to recall that day. Hopefully she would apologize for the question entirely or get defensive about being called morbid; either way, Voldemort could deflect her attention to something else.

But to his surprise, Rue did not speak. She stared at him expectantly, unwilling to budge, and Voldemort recalled that she must have taken an Interrogation Methods class in Auror training.

The best option left was to lie.

'I won't say I'm proud of it,' he said, biting the inside of his lip to make himself look concerned about her opinion – which of course he was, but in an entirely different way. 'I admit I am a murderer, and an unrepentant one at that –' denying that would be laying it on too thick '– but I genuinely prefer less gore. It was a disgustingly Muggle murder, wasn't it? The less said about it, the better.

'Suffice to say that I was being treated badly, and von Rot simply had to go. I was, I admit, desperate.'

There. It must have been luck that the girl stumbled onto such a potentially revealing question. Even Aeron Vale, the most trustworthy of his guards (or the least, depending on one's perspective), didn't know the truth of it.

He thought he saw sympathy. Forgiving him for one transgression was a significant step toward forgiveness for, or blindness to, the rest.

'Is there anything else you wanted to ask?' he prompted her. They didn't have all day.

'I…well…why…I mean, why did you kill all those people? Why did you decide to be evil?'

How pedestrian, and how amateurish to ask him two questions at once. Now Voldemort had her on track (or rather off it) and took control. Pleasantly, he said, 'I killed whenever it suited my purposes to do so. As for why I decided to be evil –' and here he added a sprinkle of bitterness to the mixture '– well, it wasn't a decision, not precisely...'

People fit in boxes. Rue was female, young, naïve, and all she would need to turn her into a blubbering mass of pity was a nauseating sob story. He hardly needed to add anything: vague hints of abuse at the orphanage, an underplayed impression of isolation instead of domination of his schoolmates, a lust for knowledge and justice instead of power that led him to the Dark Arts.

It was too easy.

But it was also slow and delicate; this first strand in his web of deceit was only to draw her closer. Next he would build dependence by destroying her connection to others. It was a formula he'd followed before with tweaks here and there.

And for a brief instant, the thought of doing it again was tiring.

* * *

Ron was ready to give it up as a bad job.

The cassette tape from the Muggle's body was sitting ineffectually in the ugly brown machine that was supposed to make it go. It had taken Ron several minutes to get it in right, and now nothing was happening when he pressed the triangle. If Hermione was right, and she always was, there should be some sort of noise coming out of the ruddy thing.

But every time he depressed the triangle, the machine "clicked", and the triangle popped up again. It was infuriating, and he'd have thrown it by now if the tape wasn't (maybe) a vital piece of evidence in a murder.

'Come on, damn it,' he muttered, pressing the triangle down for the umpteenth time. The same thing happened: click, pop, nothing. Ron was going to go mental. McLaggen was bound to demand an update on the case soon, so he'd have something to tell the press, but Ron wouldn't have much to tell him unless he got the tape working.

Ron heard the telltale squeak of the archivist's cart coming to a halt a few cubicles away. Distracted and hopeless, he didn't block out the quiet conversation, especially when he heard his own name mentioned.

'…then Weasley got the good case,' grumbled Dawlish. 'Lucky bugger, I bet _he's_ not filling out paperwork right now…'

_I almost wish I was,_ thought Ron. He hadn't felt this much pressure for results in ages.

'I'm sure that Mr Weasley will solve the case in no time,' said Phi, voice brimming with confidence.

Ron wondered what Phi was doing in the Auror Office again that day; he thought the junior archivists took turns with the dull work of paper collection. Phi did seem to end up with the unpleasant job more often then the others, though. It was just as well, because Ron needed a break from the damn tape, and Phi was always ready and willing to talk.

'Hey Phi,' Ron greeted him even before the cart was quite at Ron's cubicle. 'Having a good day?'

Phi's eyes shone excitedly, as though talking to Ron was the highlight of his day. Even if it was just Phi, Ron couldn't help but feel complimented.

'Mr Weasley!' he said in a dramatic whisper. 'How's the case going?'

Ron grinned lopsidedly as he realized that this probably _was_ the highlight of Phi's day. He'd wheedle whatever information he could out of Ron and then gossip it back to the rest of the office. But Ron couldn't fault him for it, having used his service so often in the past.

'Pretty crummy,' admitted Ron. 'I can't get _this_ thing –' he jabbed at the tape player '– to work.'

Phi looked as though he might burst as he said, 'I know how to work one of those! I could help you if you'll let me!'

Ron was surprised; he'd never pegged Phi as a Muggle-born. There wasn't any reason for him not to be, Ron supposed. 'That would be great.' And it would save Ron a lot of embarrassment.

Phi popped the tape machine open and took out the tape. Then he turned the tape over and pressed it back into the machine. He closed it and pressed the triangle down, and for once, it stayed down.

'That's it?' Ron felt like a complete idiot.

'Yes, but there doesn't seem to be anything on it. It's supposed to make noise when you turn it on. Let me check the volume…no, the volume's up all the way. I think the tape must be blank, Mr Weasley.'

Ron stared. 'Blank? Are you sure? Maybe you just didn't do it right.'

'I'm certain I did, sir. Look, the reels inside are spinning, but nothing's happening. There's nothing but static.'

'That's stupid. Why would a Muggle be carrying it with him, then?'

Phi didn't answer; he set the tape player back down. 'Sorry,' he said, eyes downcast. 'I really wish I could have helped more.'

'S'okay…' said Ron, sighing. What a waste of time. 'Hey, wait, before you leave…'

If Phi was a Muggle-born, maybe he would know something about Ron's other clue. Ron opened the desk drawer that he'd stuck the evidence in and pulled out the pen he'd found on the victim's body. He showed it to Phi, pointing at the words on the side. 'Have you ever heard of _RASP Europe?_'

Phi seemed to consider the pen carefully; Ron was surprised by his thoughtful expression. He'd never considered Phi to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, and he guiltily admitted to himself that it was probably because of his gimped legs.

'I can't say that I have,' Phi replied after a moment, 'but if you go down to the Hall of Records, you can look it up through the Muggle computer network.'

'The what?' asked Ron. Even though it was just Phi he was talking to, he felt a little stupid for having to ask an archivist how to examine his evidence.

Animatedly, and without any condescension in his voice, Phi explained, 'Muggle computers can access almost any Muggle information there is. I don't really know how it works, but there's a really helpful girl who keeps it all running somehow.

'I could show you…er, that is, if you want me to…I don't mean to bother you, if you'd rather…'

Ron doubted he would even find the "computers" without help – the Hall of Records was enormous – and the other junior archivists were irritating snots. There was no question in Ron's mind that he wanted Phi to come along. 'Nah, you're no bother. Thanks a lot for the help.'

Phi's pale face managed to turn a little pink at the praise.

The trek to the Hall of Records was always agonizing. It was located on the first floor with all the other administrative sections, only a floor above Ron's office, so in theory it shouldn't take long to get there. But the door was far from the elevator, and the hallway was constantly jammed with the shuffling underlings of the Minister for Magic. It was too loud for conversation, so Ron was forced to trudge along like a reanimated corpse.

But at least Phi's slowness wasn't an issue here. Ron had been a little antsy on the way to the elevator, forced to move at a third of his normal speed just so Phi could keep up. But it wasn't as if Phi could help it, and even Ron, not known for his tact, wouldn't think of complaining.

The Hall of Records itself was a tall, arching set of rooms and corridors with several floors. Its existence was made possible through advanced magical expansion of the otherwise office-sized space it was squeezed into. Though there were a handful of people coming and going, there was far less activity than in any other section of the administrative floor, and the atmosphere was relaxed.

As they passed to the left of the help desk, under the sign marked "ENTER", the fellow manning the desk grabbed Phi by the shoulder. 'The wicked witch is after yeh,' said the moustached man.

Ron didn't have any idea what the man meant. Phi smiled back cheerfully. 'Thank you for the warning,' he replied. The moustached man shook his head and let them pass.

'Wicked witch?' Ron asked. They were moving toward the Archive for Phi to dump off the cart of papers he'd taken from the second floor.

'He means the Head Archivist,' said Phi, not seeming worried at all by the warning he'd been given. 'She can be irritable at times, but she's really a very nice person once –'

'BRECHT!'

The howling voice sounded like a cross between a human shout and the squawk of a crow. A quill-thin matron stalked toward them, face purple and eyes glaring from behind her spectacles.

'Hello, ma'am,' said Phi calmly. 'How can I help you?'

Phi's unflappable expression only seemed to make her more furious than ever. '_Mister _Brecht!' she said icily. '_Where_ have you been all this time?! _How_ long does it take for you to do a simple thing?'

'I've been on the second floor, ma'am, picking up papers to add to the archives. It usually takes me less time, but I stopped to chat more than usual.'

Ron's eyes bugged out as he stared at Phi. Didn't he have any common sense? Everyone at the Ministry goofed off a great deal of the time, but they didn't just admit it baldly to their bosses…at least not if they wanted to keep their heads. He felt obliged to step in. 'It's my fault, ma'am,' he said. 'Phi – er, Mr Brecht – has been helping me out with a case for the Auror Office.'

Ron hadn't even known Phi's last name until now, and calling him Mr Brecht was very weird.

'Oh no, it's not your fault, Mr Weasley. I was terribly late before I even got to the Auror Office,' said Phi blithely. 'It was the Improper Use of Magic office that slowed me down the most. I spent over half an hour there.'

_Are you insane?_ Ron wondered. One look at the matron told him that she was going to blow her top any second. '_Phi!_' he hissed through his teeth, smiling falsely.

Phi was already talking again to the matron. 'I'm sorry if I was needed here instead. Do you want me to stay late to make up for it?'

Ron was certain he was about to witness a very nasty firing. Then, out of nowhere, the matron's anger deflated, as if she just couldn't stay furious anymore. 'Oh Phi, no…just...' she sighed. 'You're the only one who can file the Animagus applications properly, and we got three in today out of nowhere…our quarterly review is coming up this week, and there's no telling if we'll get a surprise inspection...'

She grabbed the cart from the other side and took it out of Phi's grasp. 'Just…please, for a few days, let someone _else_ go round collecting reports, I beg of you.'

'Yes, ma'am,' said Phi. Although he was calm and collected, Ron thought he caught a little disappointment in his voice.

'Come on, Mr Weasley. I'll introduce you to IT.'

Ron didn't know what IT was, but he took his place next to Phi again and they kept walking. 'Wait, you _volunteer_ to collect reports? I thought you people hated the job.'

Phi grinned. 'Most of us do, but I enjoy the change of scenery and the people. I'd do it every day if they'd let me, but sometimes they need me here too much to let me go.'

An archivist who liked talking to people was almost an oxymoron – they all liked stuffy, dark rooms with no windows and as little conversation as possible. Ron wondered if Phi was in the wrong line of work.

'Here we are!' said Phi. He indicated a cheap wooden door hiding around shelves stacked with Ministry paperwork.

It was a typical stuffy, dark room with no windows. There was a woman sitting at a desk facing the door; she looked up briefly to see who was there and then turned back to the glowing box in front of her. 'Oi Phi, what can I do for ya?' she asked, still facing the box.

'Hey Theresa,' greeted Phi. 'Mind if I turn the light on?' He was already doing so as he asked.

'Nope,' she said, continuing on with her work, or whatever she was doing, as if she hadn't noticed.

'This is Mr Weasley. He's an Auror, and –'

Her eyes shot up at his name. 'Oi, you related to Hermione Weasley by chance?'

'She's my wife,' replied Ron.

Theresa got to her feet and walked around the desk. She was wearing entirely Muggle clothes: tight blue jeans and a tight t-shirt. On the front of the t-shirt, it said: _There's no place like 127.0.0.1_. Ron didn't have a clue what it was supposed to mean.

She shook his hand with a firm grip. 'Hermione's the one who got me this job,' said Theresa, eyes sparkling behind her rimless glasses. 'She finally managed to convince these technology illiterates that they need to get current with the Muggle world – not that she's great shakes with computers herself, but at least she knows _someone_ ought to be, unlike those idiots on the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee who haven't picked up a Muggle Studies book in three decades…'

'It's great to meet you,' stated Ron once he could get a word in. He'd never heard of Hermione supporting anything like this, but it wasn't as though she told him about everything she did. They both liked to leave work at the office most of the time. 'I'm hoping you can help me find out what this might stand for.'

He brandished the pen, and she took it from him, inspecting the writing on the side. '_RASP?_ Hmm…'

She shuffled back around the wires and humming metal boxes around her desk and started making quick-paced tapping noises again. 'If it's a Muggle acronym, I'll find it. I suppose since it's written on a pen it must be some organization or other, so that leaves out all the technical terms…should I assume it's in English?' Theresa looked up at him, waiting for a reply.

Ron hadn't thought that _RASP_ could be in another language, but it didn't seem likely. 'Let's stick with English for now,' he decided.

Phi and Ron stood by while Theresa tapped and clicked on the Muggle machines – commuters, if Ron remembered it right. He took a look around the room: it was barely possible to move without kicking over a box or stepping on scattered red and black wires and Muggle things that Ron wouldn't even try to identify.

There were posters and pictures all over the walls, most of which were as confusing as Theresa's t-shirt, and a desk like a student's from a classroom. The desk was topped with several old mugs and a coffee pot, along with a large tin of coffee that was open and three-fourths empty. A large yellow sticker on the front of the desk, which Ron identified immediately from one of Hermione's civil rights campaigns, read 'I'M A SQUIB…AND PROUD OF IT!'

That campaign to integrate Squibs more fully into the magical community hadn't gone overly well. Ron had told Hermione from the start that it wouldn't take off, because hardly anyone would even admit to being a Squib, and those that would certainly didn't want to be paraded around as examples, but it looked like Theresa had benefited from it.

'Come on, you bloody thing!' she cursed. 'Damn magic is always interfering with the signal strength…all right, here we are…hmm…RASP could stand for the Reusable Avionics Software Project, but that wouldn't have its own pen…or it could be the Register of Accredited Service Providers, but since that's only in the UK it doesn't make sense for the pen to say "Europe" too…

'Oh, I bet it's this one! Researchers of Astonishing Supernatural Phenomena! That makes much more sense, doesn't it? I'll check if they've got a European branch...'

Soon they not only confirmed the existence of a European branch but that the European branch was actually the organization's headquarters. Theresa gave Ron an address in Manchester for the headquarters, told him to say hello to Hermione for her, and he was off and running.

…Until McLaggen stopped him on his way out of the Auror Office and demanded a progress update, and then insisted that he write up a summation to present to the media the next day…


	8. Reminiscence

_**Chapter Eight:**__** Reminiscence**_

_Two Days Later_

Hermione was hugging Harry tightly like a choking vine. She was worried about something, he could tell. He hoped it wasn't him and returned her embrace with stiff limbs.

It was a small outdoor Muggle cafe in London, a cheerful place with small glass tables and metal-backed chairs warmed by sunlight. They met here for lunch on Thursdays often during the summer months, whenever Harry couldn't find a suitably good excuse to avoid the encounter.

Hermione ordered for them both – their usual – with a pleased look, and smiled at Harry too broadly for him to trust.

'What a week,' she said, sighing. 'I'm exhausted. I can't believe it's only Thursday.'

Harry wasn't any more or less exhausted than usual, but he didn't work as hard as Hermione. He nodded and looked sympathetically at her.

'Do you know how hard it is to get the Ministry to obey its own rules?' she continued. '_Three _formal complaints from house elves this week, and you know how bad things have to be for them to speak out about the way they're treated…honestly, sometimes it feels like things haven't changed at all…'

Harry nodded slowly, sipping at his cool drink as soon as it was brought to the table. Hermione seemed to realize the absurdity of her final statement, spoken rashly as it was, for she went oddly quiet a moment and turned her attention to an ordinary Muggle couple walking by.

When Harry was finished drinking, he said, 'I agree,' though he knew that even she didn't agree with what she'd said.

Hermione looked ready to contradict him, but she let the matter drop into the ever-thickening fog of unspeakable subjects that separated them.

'How are things with Ginny?' she asked, apparently deciding to switch from one uncomfortable topic to another. Harry couldn't recall when he'd last talked about a _comfortable_ topic with Hermione.

_Were_ there any comfortable topics with Hermione?

'Fine,' he replied, knowing damn well that she wanted more than a one-word answer. 'What about Ron?' Harry had every right to change the subject too.

Her expression turned sour, and he was pleased, because it meant she had an opinion on the matter that she couldn't stop herself from sharing – no matter how much she wanted to push Harry into discussing Ginny. '_Awful._ The _Prophet's _been lambasting him – and it doesn't help that McLaggen's kept him occupied with paperwork and interviews. It's as if he doesn't want Ron to find the culprit…'

She scowled at her glass. 'I've been wondering about McLaggen, to be frank…'

'Wondering about him how? Why?' Harry felt a little guilty that he didn't really care, but anything to keep her going. He resisted the urge to look at his watch to see how much longer he had to take this.

Hermione shook her head in consternation. 'Oh, never mind, I don't have proof of anything at all. I don't even have an _accusation_ of anything in particular. He's just so serially incompetent that it's hard not to wonder if he's holding up the investigation on purpose – but it's probably just McLaggen being McLaggen…'

McLaggen being an idiot was something they could both agree on; maybe there was a safe topic after all. 'Never was the fastest broom in the shed, was he?' Harry commented in an offhand way before he took a sip of tea.

'Ron's come home exhausted the past couple of nights,' she continued, worried, 'but I haven't seen him so driven in years.'

Hermione looked at him askance; they both knew exactly when the last time Ron had been driven was, and it wasn't a pleasant remembrance. They could never keep from stumbling into some awful recollection for long; there was too much history between them and no alcohol.

_A broken, demented scream, shards of a windowpane on the floor, thin lines of blood across her face – _

'I'm sorry, Harry, you were saying?'

Harry hadn't been saying anything at all. Hermione was dazed, not being nearly so practiced as Harry at recovering from slips down memory alley. He felt a blossoming empathy and sense of understanding that caused him to reply, gently, 'I was saying how Ginny and I are doing. I haven't done anything to change things since the last time we talked about it. I know I should, but…'

That was as far as his honesty could extend, even to himself.

She seemed to appreciate his effort, since she didn't scold him as she sometimes did for his lack of progress. 'You two should set aside some time together to talk,' she said, her expression showing her good intentions.

'I know. I know.'

Their lunch orders arrived then. The understanding between them dissipated into the ether as they ate, and after several minutes Harry could tell that Hermione was already concocting something else by the way her brow furrowed as she picked at her food. He couldn't blame her; she knew, and he knew, that despite any good intentions at the moment, he wouldn't take the difficult step to turn them into action.

Unlike Harry, though, Hermione thought she could do something about it. She had become more and more insistent in her attempts to fix him lately, as if he were one of her projects getting near its deadline.

The shoe finally dropped. 'I've been meaning to ask a favour of you.'

For Hermione, there wasn't much Harry could say to that except, 'Anything.'

She took a deep breath like she was about to blow into a horn. 'I've been hoping to help Ron relax a bit – forget about work for a while – and I'm wondering, unless you and Ginny have plans, maybe you could watch the children tomorrow night? I know we've never asked you to before '

She could never keep that shrewd gleam out of her eyes when she'd thought of something clever. Harry had the distinct feeling he was being set up; he'd _never_ been asked to watch their children before, which was odd in itself when he thought about it. 'Can't you get Fleur to do it?' he asked probingly.

'She's…not available.'

He knew Hermione was lying, but he couldn't imagine why. Trying to figure it out would probably take more energy than babysitting anyway, so he answered, 'I guess so. I don't have plans.'

Except drinking, but she'd just lecture him again if he mentioned that. He'd still have time for a pint or two after the children were in bed.

Hermione jumped on his assent at once. She was altogether too excited. 'Great! I know you'll have a wonderful time! I'll tell them to be on their best behaviour!'

The rest of their discussion was no more than neutral pleasantries about the weather and home decorating. Harry attributed this to Hermione being overly pleased about the babysitting, because normally she'd not have let him get off so easily about Ginny.

A boring conversation was better than a quarrel.

* * *

'Now just so you know, we haven't touched anything since the police left – and our story is the same, no matter how crazy you think it is. Maybe you people will just have to start believing in things outside what's considered "normal" to solve this case!' 

When Ron had entered the headquarters for the Researchers of Astonishing Supernatural Phenomena, he hadn't expected it to be another crime scene. But he'd played along, pretending to be an inspector sent by the Muggle authorities, and he now found himself investigating a thorough ransacking of the office – one that had occurred despite an untouched locked door and no damage to the windows.

Devices that looked like Muggle "computers" were blown to bits, other gadgets were smashed beyond recognition, and the desks were covered in the ashes of burned papers. He'd nearly stepped on a pen as he walked in, broken in two, identical to the one found on the body.

The man showing him around – a pear-shaped, bespectacled fellow with slick hair and a quiet voice, whose name Ron hadn't found out yet – looked at him in an unfriendly way. 'I know you people think we're mad, but _you _can't explain it, can you?'

'It _is_ mysterious,' he acknowledged casually, still playing a clueless Muggle. 'Nothing seems to have been stolen…does your group have any enemies?'

'No…at least, I didn't think so, but our boss has been missing for days now. His wife filed a missing person report, but we haven't heard anything since. He went to London for a meeting and never came back...personally, well, I and some of the others think he was murdered.'

Ron thought so too, but tried not to let it show. 'Why do you think that?'

'Come on, you must have heard of _that_ murder – the one in the middle of the day, no gunshots fired? It was a wizard or witch who did it, we're sure of it.'

'Hmm,' muttered Ron noncommittally. 'So you believe this break-in has something to do with the disappearance of your superior...why is that?'

The man directed his eyes toward the floor. 'What's the point?' he asked bitterly. 'You won't believe me.'

'Try me.'

Unconvinced, he agreed curtly, 'Fine. Mr Creevey was –'

'Mr _Creevey_?'

'My boss.'

'Ah.'

'…Anyway, what our group does is put together all the evidence we can to show that magic exists.'

He waited a moment, looking intently at Ron as though expecting an objection, but Ron stayed quiet, so he continued, 'Everyone who works here has seen it with their own eyes – Mr Creevey's got some cousins who are wizards, even though they don't admit it because of their secrecy law. We usually collect interviews from people who've seen magic firsthand to get a better idea of what magic society is like.

'The rest of us still do the interviews, but Mr Creevey started on something else last year. He was getting all kinds of information on the magical world from somewhere, more than ever before – lots of us were pissed that he wouldn't share much – and he said something vaguely about being hired to calculate a date. Mr Creevey's got a degree in maths, see, and he had all this data plotted out on a downward curve that dropped off straight down at the end on a particular day. Sometime next year, I think – I didn't get a close look, and all his work is burned to a crisp now.

'But he finished his job a few weeks ago. Most of us think the wizard or witch he was working for must've decided to off him and cover up the evidence of what was going on. But we both know you think I'm a loon, so…'

'No, no, this is very helpful, really,' said Ron sincerely. It was true – now he had some idea of the motive behind the murder. 'Do you know who the, er, wizard hiring Mr Creevey was? Any idea at all?'

The man shook his head regretfully. 'I wish I knew. We're a little worried he'll come back to finish the job; we'll probably move headquarters as soon as our lease ends and our next funding jolt comes in.'

'Who funds you?'

Ron asked the question unthinkingly, more because he was curious than because he thought it important, but the uncomfortable reaction of the man made him pay close attention.

'I…we…well…no one, right now. Our founder funded us out of his own pocket for ages, but he left about, oh, seven years ago, and none of us have seen him since. We've managed to make due since then, but money's been tight. We try to interest people, but it's hard to be convincing without our really brilliant piece of evidence – besides, people are so sceptical nowadays, they think it's all special effects.'

Ron frowned in confusion. 'What "brilliant" evidence?'

The man's face – Ron really had to get his name at some point – lit up with interest. 'You want to see? It's nothing much now, but before it was amazing! We keep it in the vault still – too sentimental to give it up – so it hasn't turned to ash like everything else.'

He followed the man to a picture hanging in the deceased Mr Creevey's office, and he tilted it to the side to reveal a vault built into the wall. While blocking Ron's view, he turned the combination lock until the vault popped open.

Then, with gentle care, he reached inside and took out a glass box, which he brought over to Ron.

Inside the box was a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ dated July 18th, 1943. It was folded so the front headline was visible: _Grindelwald Losing Ground to Soviets_.But there was something "off" about it, and Ron spotted it immediately.

The picture wasn't moving.

'It's a magic newspaper! The pictures in it used to move!' the man insisted in time with Ron's observation. 'They don't anymore…haven't even twitched for five years…I guess the spell stopped working.'

Judging by his tone, you'd think the man was talking about a death in the family.

Ron didn't know a lot about the magic that made wizarding pictures move, but he'd never heard of it wearing off before. It was disturbing to see a still, _dead_ photo of a line of Russian wizards. 'Where did you –'

'We got it from the founder,' he interrupted, as though he'd said it dozens of times before, 'Dr Dennis Bishop, and he got it from the trash at the orphanage he grew up in. One of the other children could do magic, he said.'

Ron stared at the paper, particularly the date, feeling as though he'd been unexpectedly kicked in the gut.

_No._ It _couldn't_ be. The world wasn't _that_ small…was it?

_Thin lines of blood across her face. Dead, dead eyes wide with fear. Her bloody, separated arm lying at his feet, his own scream coming from far, far away…_

The memory smacked Ron so hard he swayed on his feet, but the man seemed not to notice. With a note of nostalgia, he added, 'This paper was what convinced me I really wasn't seeing things when I saw my second cousin turn into a rat.'

Ron's eyes bulged. 'What was your name again?' he questioned, his voice high and his heart beating quickly.

'Oh, sorry, didn't say, did I? Vincent Pettigrew.'

A double kick, then.

Ron had a Harry-like urge to get as drunk as he could.

And then he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a dull grey rectangle peeking out from the vault, nearly ready to fall to the floor. The sight of it was uplifting, a light of salvation.

Another cassette tape.

* * *

It was seven fifty two in the evening, and Voldemort was waiting. 

If Aeron didn't get it to him today, he wouldn't have it until Monday. He knew, rationally, that it didn't matter if he acquired it a few days late – but it was a precious source of new information, of new _thoughts_ to free him from circular contemplations of the past and directionless depression about the future.

'May I have your fives, please?' asked Ajit.

Voldemort had two fives in his hand. 'Go fish.'

'There's only one card left, and I have two fives. And you're going to win anyway.'

'_Go. Fish._'

Ajit sighed, but picked up the remaining card.

'Fives,' said Voldemort. Ajit handed them over without comment. 'I win.'

'Congratulations,' replied Ajit calmly.

Voldemort threw his cards down on the table. Cheating was much more entertaining with Fairfax. He liked to assign point values to the different shades of red Fairfax turned when he caught him at it.

Then the door miraculously opened, and in walked Aeron, whom Voldemort had never been more pleased to see.

'You can head out now,' said Aeron to Ajit, smiling a little too widely – the man would never master subtle manipulation or even reach novice level. 'Ramsden is with Quigley and Edgecomb. They'll be up in a minute for the night shift.'

Ajit was reluctant, no doubt torn between the oh-so-important rule, constantly broken, about never leaving anyone alone with him and the chance to get home five minutes early. 'You're sure?'

'_Yes_,' said Aeron, annoyance showing through. 'Go on, I'll be fine.'

'Very well,' Ajit acquiesced. 'Good night,' he said to Voldemort. 'I'll see you on Saturday. Be good.'

'Aren't I always?'

Ajit shook his head as he left, though with a smile on his face. Voldemort immediately turned his attention to Aeron, who just as immediately took the tape out of his pocket.

'Zero was late,' Aeron said by way of explanation for his own tardiness.

Voldemort didn't even acknowledge that he'd heard him. The fingers of his left hand tapped the arm of his chair as he waited for Aeron to get on with it; soon he did, producing his wand.

Voldemort did not like letting someone else cast a spell on him, and had to battle his instincts just to let it happen.

'_Cogitare simulo,_' said Aeron. A snaking blue light wound itself into the tape, spinning the wheels, and then flew into Voldemort's head through each of his temples. The wheels in the tape spun rapidly, and Voldemort tried to ignore the sound being fed into his mind. Soon the contents of the tape would be part of his memory, and he could access them at will, but for now a fast, incomprehensible, and above all _irritating_ squeak was all he could hear.

It was done in minutes, and Aeron managed to destroy the tape about ten seconds before Quigley and Edgecomb walked in.

* * *

In his mind, a sexless, slow voice spoke: 

_**Three**__** will be the first to leave the table…remove him by whatever method you choose…destroy all evidence of his association with the Organization…**_

_**Count **__**two more off in threes by the end of the ninth month…**_

_**T**__**he threads are twisting slowly…I see it written in the sky…**_

_**T**__**he twentieth of May is the day the world will break…magic will shake and snap…**_

_**It will **__**spiral through the gap between their souls…and it will be gone.  
**_

* * *

**A/N:** I hope you liked the chapter. I also hope it wasn't _too _depressing. If all goes according to forecasts (it didn't in _this _chapter, but a writer can dream) the next chapter will be more light-hearted 


	9. Fate

**A/N: **Thanks go out to everyone for their feedback and to Clara Minutes for beta reading. I hope you enjoy this chapter; Voldemort is frustrated, Ginny is frustrated, Ron is frustrated, and McLaggen is evil. Chapters should start coming faster than once a month now that summer's here - much faster, I hope. My goal is for Voldemort and Harry to have met again by the end of the month (and I mean this month in the real world, not story months)._**  
**_

_**Chapter Nine: Fate**_

_Friday Evening:_

'It's my shift,' Tonks told the phoenix on the wall.

The bricks parted to let her through. She gave one last frown to the homeless man leering at her. Something about him bothered her, but she couldn't place it. And she couldn't use magic on a Muggle without a cause to present at the inquiry that would surely follow, so each time she passed him by, she made light of her vague suspicion.

_Watch it, Tonks, or you'll end up like Moody,_ she told herself this time, her lip quirked in amusement as she went to her locker.

She dressed quickly, pulling her robes over her head and slipping on a pair of jeans and a tie-dyed t-shirt. Then she put on her special Underground shoes – worn, dirty sneakers that were wonderfully comfortable.

Tonks opened the door to leave; on the other side, a man was waiting to get in. It was Wyndham Wolcott, one of her two partners on the Friday evening shift.

He smiled warmly when he saw her.

'Evening, Tonks.' He climbed through the wall. Cheekily, he added, 'You can stay if you want.'

'Don't mind if I do.' They usually left for work together, and she didn't want to wait outside under the homeless man's gaze. Tonks faced the wall as he changed behind her.

'Did you hear who's replacing old Isis on Shift One?' asked Wolcott.

Tonks hadn't thought about it. _He _had shredded Isis's sanity like a cheese grater in less than two years. The poor old woman was borderline neurotic now – _like Moody_ – and wasn't ever expected to return to work after her leave of absence expired. 'Who?'

Mockingly, he said, 'Rue Moreland.'

Tonks chuckled. Surely not. 'No, seriously, who?'

'I'm serious.'

Tonks turned around, her eyes bulging. Wolcott was buttoning up his shirt. 'What?'

'_Moreland_? You must be joking.'

She then realized that Wolcott was very attractive in a traditional, broad-shouldered, square-jawed sort of way. He wasn't her type, she told herself, but his dishabille was discomfiting enough to make Tonks face the wall again.

'Cross my heart. Just look there.'

Tonks reluctantly turned around again to see what he was indicating. The name _Rue Moreland_ was attached to the locker he pointed to.

'He'll eat her for breakfast.'

'He could eat just about anyone for breakfast.'

'But _her_!' Tonks was indignant. 'Management can't seriously have approved her. She's completely green, and they give her _him_ for her first assignment?'

'You just don't like her,' said Wolcott.

Tonks scowled and crossed her arms. It was a fair point. She didn't have anything against the girl, exactly – Moreland just rubbed her the wrong way. She was too naïve to make a good Auror, yet they had her guarding a man who feasted on the foolish.

'_You_ just like her because she's attractive.'

Wolcott wiggled his eyebrows, mischievously admitting the charge. 'That does help. But to be fair to management, it's hard to find qualified people who don't want to tear into _him_.'

'They should have tried harder.'

'It took three months to replace Isis.'

'What about Kingsley?'

'Then someone would need to replace him on Sunday mornings, and that shift is impossible to fill. Face it, we need new blood.'

Tonks sat in silence as Wolcott laced up his boots. He was right, but she couldn't help thinking that they were sacrificing quality for quotas.

* * *

Nathan O'Hare, the third person on their shift, was terminally early as always. He was already inside when Tonks and Wolcott arrived at the apartment building. They dressed in wizard's robes again and, cursing the elevator, took the stairs to the seventh floor. Two members of the last shift, Dennison and Night, were waiting for them at the stairwell door. 

Their anxious faces told Tonks that this hadn't been one of his good days.

'He's been _unbearable_,' Dennison complained without prompting.

'We gave up on exercising him,' said Night, his voice high with stress. 'He wouldn't have anything to do with it.'

Dennison shuddered. 'And then _lunch_! It took an hour to clean up!'

'Just to warn you,' stated Night, deadly serious, 'he's in no mood for anything.'

Tonks wasn't feeling encouraged. Wolcott, silent as usual, didn't look concerned, and she noticed him patting the pocket of his long coat. Knowing what that meant, Tonks breathed a sigh of relief. 'Oh, I'm sure we'll manage. You're relieved.'

'Pierce is still in there with O'Hare. Ogden left,' was Dennison's final, brusque comment as he left.

The door squealed and shut. 'Are you sure this is a good idea?' Tonks asked immediately.

'Do you have a better one?'

Tonks didn't ask any more questions after that. She _didn't_ have any other ideas, and her reluctance had become no more than a formality over the past few months.

They had made a deal with the devil that the other shifts would die for.

Tonks opened the door.

'Oi, Pierce!' she called loudly as she strode in. 'You can go now!'

'Thank Merlin,' he muttered, shooting Voldemort's armchair a dirty look, though he wasn't in it. 'He's in the bathroom. We're not supposed to leave him alone in there anymore. He flooded the toilets earlier this week.'

They heard shouting coming from inside the bathroom. Wolcott was moving toward the bathroom door just as it burst open.

'March!' shouted Ogden furiously. He swished his wand, and Voldemort came flailing out the door against his will.

'Ah ah, that's bad form,' he protested, wagging his finger at the man behind him as he walked on his own power down the hall. 'You're abusing your power.'

'YOU'RE ONE TO TALK ABOUT –'

'Ogden!' shouted Tonks, using her in-charge voice. Ogden stopped, and Voldemort smirked in satisfaction as he strode across the room and sat down casually in his chair.

'That's enough. Guard the outside entrance. Wolcott and I will look after him for a few hours until he goes to bed.'

Ogden, a plump man with angry eyes, grit his teeth and obeyed. Soon she and Wolcott were alone with Voldemort, who stared out the window.

Without turning, Voldemort asked, 'I assume our arrangement is still valid?' His expression was frigid, and Tonks could tell he was in a sincerely ill mood, not just being difficult for the sake of it as usual.

'Yes, yes,' said Tonks, feeling depressed about it. They were cheating the system, but it was _so_ much easier this way, and it was harmless. She waved her wand at the wall.

The wall disappeared and was replaced by a porch with a sliding glass door separating it from the main house. Tonks and Wolcott had gone to a lot of trouble creating it the first time; now they made it invisible when they weren't there.

Voldemort didn't move except to tap his fingers on the arms of his chair. '_And?_'

'I've got it,' spoke Wolcott. He pulled a bottle of Firewhiskey out of his pocket. This time Voldemort did look up, and he stared fixedly at the bottle, his emotions inscrutable.

'Very well,' he assented, rising from his chair. Glaring at Tonks, he said, 'You will play white.'

* * *

'Check.' 

Tonks moved her king out of the way.

'Check.'

She moved again.

'Check.'

She scowled. 'You're just moving your piece back and forth.'

'So are you.'

'I don't have anywhere else to move!'

'I don't care.'

He watched her try to control her temper. He was amused by it, which meant the alcohol was kicking in to relieve him of his perpetual boredom.

Their arrangement was simple: he got fresh air and whiskey, both of which he was not normally fond of in large quantities. In return, he didn't make trouble.

He did not like losing control over his full faculties as a general rule, but there were times of weakness – times he hated himself for. Friday nights. Oh, the Aurors felt so _terribly_ guilty about giving him something he wanted, but little did they know that he did not _want _it so much as he _needed _it, and he despised needing anything.

There had been a time when he had eschewed food, drink, sleep, and all other human requirements. Once he had not felt cold; now unseasonably chilly night air seeped through his skin.

Now he took alcohol from Aurors because he was incapable of killing anything of more substance than interminable seconds.

'Have another shot,' she told him, staring grumpily at the board.

'Don't mind if I do.' He snapped his fingers, and Wolcott, standing with the whiskey in hand, poured more into the shot glass.

Voldemort downed it at once, savouring the burning tingle as the whiskey coated his throat. In exchange, he moved a different piece than before. It didn't matter; he'd have her checkmated in six moves.

As he moved his rook, she watched him without focus and with a small frown, deep in thought. He knew what she was thinking: that she must be in a persistent, discordant dream to be placed across from an old, near-mythical opponent, playing chess and speaking civilly without all the right feelings of hatred and rebellion. Reality was uprooted and wrong in her eyes, and he felt an extremely rare sensation of empathy. It was freakishly comforting – and even sanity-confirming – to find that he wasn't the only one living with occasional bursts of shock at his Muggle existence.

For the first time all week, Voldemort relaxed, and he let the alcohol run its course. His shoulders lost some of their tenseness.

'Did you hear that they're thinking of putting you on a Famous Wizards card?' she asked him, perhaps sensing that he would tolerate some conversation at this point.

'No,' he replied as she moved. He decided that being relaxed was boring him to death already, and it had only been three seconds.

'It won't really happen. Even the suggestion has started a minor boycott. Someone brought it up because Grindelwald got one this year.'

Unexpectedly, Wolcott stated, 'Grindelwald was an idiot. If he'd had the faintest idea of tactics, he could have won the war.'

It may have been the alcohol, but Voldemort found the point worthy of reply. 'No, he was a fool, and his tactics were poor, but it was Dumbledore that got him in the end, and it was Dumbledore who would have gotten him in the end even if he had been a brilliant strategist.'

'He didn't get you,' Wolcott pointed out.

'Certainly not.'

'So what's the difference?'

Voldemort's newfound good mood was already being tested. 'I could write a book on the differences between myself and Grindelwald, but a simpleton like you wouldn't read it.'

'Name one.'

'Wolcott, don't antagonize him,' Tonks demanded firmly.

'I'm more attractive.'

'Name another.'

'I'm not German.'

'Name a _meaningful_ one!'

'_Wolcott!_' Tonks hissed.

'Destiny.' He stared Wolcott down until the man shifted his eyes away. 'Dumbledore was destined to kill Grindelwald. There was a prophecy about it. Dumbledore liked to brag that prophecies don't mean anything, but that's because he didn't understand them – oh, don't get me wrong, Dumbledore was brilliant, I'd be lying to say he wasn't, and a powerful wizard – but all great wizards have blind spots. His blind spot was that he didn't understand the power of fate.'

'What's yours?' Tonks asked, leaning intently over the chess board.

He could poke her eyes out from here if her face wasn't so hazy, he realized. 'Hmm?'

'What's your blind spot?'

Voldemort looked away dismissively. Did she expect him to answer such a question? He would never be _that_ drunk.

'Right, of course,' Tonks went on, apparently realizing her idiocy.

'Black should have the first move in chess,' Voldemort stated, surprising his jailers. 'The Dark always makes the first move. The Light is caught perpetually responding to it. Checkmate.'

'No,' said Wolcott quietly. 'They both dance around each other. You're not checkmated yet, Tonks; sacrifice your pawn.'

Voldemort sneered. He'd had too much to drink. But then Tonks moved for the last time, and Wolcott cringed as Voldemort checkmated her solidly.

The Aurors set up the board again, and Voldemort stared down at the Muggles in the street. Whenever his mind was unoccupied, his sour mood returned, and he churned Oblivion's words over in his mind:

_The twentieth of May is the day the world will break…magic will shake and snap…It will spiral through the gap between their souls…and it will be gone._

_Will, will, will, will_. He'd thought of little else that day but his lack of power to change those words. Fate had allowed him some room for manoeuvre before – she had allowed uncertainty and action and choice – but this time she brooked no opposition. There was nothing he could do about it, about _anything_, and it was infuriating.

He flung his arm angrily across the chess board, scattering the pieces.

* * *

_Saturday Morning:_

'I can't take him anymore!' Ginny declared loudly before she'd even reached the table. Hermione stared concernedly as Ginny, who, after her initial outburst, sat down and cradled her head in her hands, pouting at the breakfast Hermione had already served for her.

'It was a disaster,' she stated morosely.

'I know.'

'I don't understand why he doesn't want children. He's not happy with the way things are. He's miserable. I'm miserable. We're both miserable.'

Hermione said what she'd said a dozen times before: 'Children may not solve the problem.'

That was what they called it: "the problem". Hermione could think of several more accurate words: apathy, discontent, ennui. They called it "the problem" because it was easier to think of it that way, and it implied a possible fix.

Hermione knew that hope for a solution was all that kept Ginny from leaving him.

'They would!' Ginny was adamant. 'He may not be the man he was, but he would love his children. They would give him a purpose.'

Hermione was sympathetic, but had no idea what to try next, and she wasn't fully in agreement with Ginny's idea anyway. 'Maybe disaster is too strong a word,' she began carefully. 'He was…unengaged…with the children –'

'He barely acknowledged that they were there. He fed them, sat them in front of the telly, and stared off into space until they went to bed. Then he drank.'

'Have you asked him lately about the possibility?'

'Not since last time.' Ginny's slender hand picked up her fork, and she stabbed her unfortunate egg a few times until the yolk bled into the egg white. 'There's no point. I know he hasn't changed his mind, and I don't want to badger him about it.'

'You're killing your egg.'

'I'm not hungry. I want Harry to _want_ to have children, not do it just because I prod him constantly.'

She frowned and bit her lip, staring at the egg. 'Why don't we ever ask him the reason he's like this anymore? At least we used to try.'

Hermione couldn't look her in the eye. 'He'll talk when he's ready.'

'We said that ten years ago. And where's Ron? He ought to be here.'

'Working. He has a case, and he wants to present it neatly to McLaggen on Monday.' So he didn't have time today for their hopeless conspiracy to force Harry to be Harry again, he had said, but she didn't mention that part to Ginny.

'Sometimes I think Ron's given up on Harry entirely,' Ginny complained.

_He has, _thought Hermione. _He still loves him like a brother, but he doesn't think we can help him get better by trying to make him be normal again._

'He hasn't given up. He's very busy.'

* * *

_Monday Morning:_

'The Organization, as they call themselves, has around a dozen members. One was the victim, Mr Charles Creevey, the head of a group called RASP that investigates wizarding-related events and tries to prove them to the Muggle world.

'Each member of the Organization is referred to by number. Creevey was called Three. His job for the Organization was to calculate a specific date – and he did. The twentieth of May.'

McLaggen's glare was enough to turn a man to stone. 'And what does that date _mean_, Weasley?'

'I don't know, sir.'

McLaggen stood up and angrily asked, 'So what are you wasting my time for with this conspiracy nonsense? Muggles and wizards working together – feh!'

Ron had expected some resistance from his superior, but not outright hostility. He held his head high. 'This Organization had motive to kill him. His work for them was done, and they probably thought he'd try to talk about what he'd found – given that talking about wizards is his profession.'

McLaggen's face was blotchy red, and he gripped the back of his chair with stiff hands that looked as though they wanted to be around Ron's neck.

'I have evidence,' Ron continued undeterred. He placed six tapes on McLaggen's desk. 'All of these are from a vault in the victim's office. The man or woman on the tapes is called Oblivion.'

McLaggen's jaw dropped. 'Oblivion?! You – hah! You don't even know if it's a man or a woman's voice?!'

'No sir. His or her voice is disguised. The victim received instructions from this Oblivion. Most of it is gibberish, but there's enough to convince anyone that they had a working relationship.

'And there's more.'

'Is there?' McLaggen grit his teeth.

'I was able to determine through the tapes that someone in the group with the codename Two was paying Creevey for his services to the Organization. The victim delivered his results to One, who delivered them in turn to Oblivion.'

Ron added another three reports to the four already on McLaggen's desk. 'It's all in here, sir. I recommend a formal investigation team be assembled to look into the Organization and Oblivion in particular. It looks to me like he might be a Dark wizard on the rise.'

'I don't give a damn what it looks like to you, Weasley! _I'll_ decide whether a formal investigation is needed!'

McLaggen smiled coldly. 'I see nothing in _here _–' he rudely indicated the papers '– that convinces me these people are a threat, if this group even exists at all. You have circumstantial evidence at best.'

Ron's eyes bulged and his fists tightened. 'Maybe if you_ look_ –'

McLaggen snapped, 'Hold. Your. Tongue. Weasley.'

Ron complied. His entire body was tense with indignation.

Sitting back in his chair, eyes gleaming with mischief, McLaggen said, 'For now, I'm classifying this case as cold.'

This Ron couldn't stand for. 'It's only been a week! We can't quit now! I have real leads in there!'

McLaggen sneered. 'You're off the case,' he declared, cutting off Ron's objection by raising his voice. He added, 'And if you talk to the media about any of what you've just told me, you'll be out of a job, and I'll see to it that you don't get another one.

'You're dismissed, Weasley.'

Apoplectic, Ron stormed from the room without another word.

* * *

McLaggen stared at the pile on his desk, looked from side to side in the room, and then tapped his wand on the tapes. They burst into flames. 

'Damn it,' he grumbled. He took out a sheet of paper – not just any sheet, but an old, yellowed, torn one. On it, he scribbled:

_Zero,  
Your cleanup failed. Weasley knows.  
One_

The ink disappeared into the paper. McLaggen waited. His patience was running thin by the time he finally received a reply in deep red ink:

_**One,  
I'll take care of him. Don't bother Oblivion with it.  
Zero**_

McLaggen smirked. He knew why Zero didn't want Oblivion bothered: he'd mucked things up and didn't want it to be widely known.

_Zero,  
Fine. But you owe me.  
One_

To this, McLaggen received an immediate reply.

_**Cormac McLaggen,  
I owe you nothing. If Oblivion hears of this, your death will be painful.  
Zero**_


	10. Monster

**A/N: **Thanks to all my reviewers and thanks again to my (overworked) beta reader, Clara Minutes.

First off, I'd like to mention that I changed a minor detail in the previous chapter; I referred to the dead member of the Organization as Two when I'd previously referred to him as Three. My bad. It's fixed now. I'm not sure how that slipped past my radar. This fic is convoluted enough without errors to make it confusing, so sorry.

The good news is that I'll definitely have the first scene with Harry and Voldemort together written by the end of the month (easily - probably more like a week from now). The bad news is that there's no way I'll have it beta read by then; I've been so prolific this month that I have a backlog of stuff for my poor beta, including a couple chapters of my seventh-year fic.

I'm considering posting further chapters of this fic here before they're beta read because it seems silly to have chapters written weeks before they can be posted (which is what's going to happen if I keep writing at this pace). Then I can just update with any changes post-beta. That's one option. The other is to not post until after each chapter is beta read and wait longer to post them.

I'm not entirely sure what to do; this is a weird situation. Anyway, onto the fic.

_**Chapter Ten: **__**Monster**_

_The Second to Last Day in__ August:_

Fairfax had been acting oddly all morning. He'd nearly skipped up the steps from the Underground, and Rue had asked what had gotten into him. 'You'll see, you'll see,' he'd replied with a large grin.

It bothered her, so she watched him closely and waited for the reason to surface. It happened a few hours into their shift. Voldemort, not getting a rise out of him so easily as usual, went over the line with a particular remark at the expense of Fairfax's parentage.

But Fairfax didn't explode at all. His grin was predatory. 'The Doctor is coming today,' he told Voldemort with relish. 'I do hope you enjoy his company.'

'There's a doctor coming?' asked Rue. She knew what a doctor was, but why would one come here? Was Voldemort ill? Wouldn't they send a Healer? Her brow crinkled with worry – now that she looked, he was paler than usual, and his eyes were completely wrong. There wasn't anger or sarcasm or humour or coldness in them.

_Fear_, she realized just before those same eyes became inscrutable again. Her heart skipped a beat – she'd never seen him scared before.

He was an amazing man, one with stories and real life lessons and a voice that swayed her in every way. Yes, he was evil, whatever that meant. Lord Voldemort's reasoning had made her question that silly word – it was used against everyone and everything that didn't match the fickle values of society, he'd said. And he'd argued it well. The knowledge that he'd done terrible things was mixed day by day with a backwards sense of admiration for him managing to do all he'd done despite all opposition.

No one could face Dumbledore and the Ministry and everyone else without bravery, she'd decided. Yes, he was very brave – even braver than her father, who had been working within the system and received accolades, while Voldemort had received terror and scorn.

Seeing him afraid was frightening itself. She was so disturbed that she missed most of Fairfax's answer to her question.

'– and his Lordship here is very fond of his visits, aren't you?'

He was silent for a beat; then he came back with, 'One might wonder why you thirst to see me suffer.' His eyes fell on Rue.

Fairfax rolled his eyes. 'Because you _deserve _it.'

'People with far better reason to despise me than you have determined not to treat me cruelly. I know the human character well, and your meanness reflects poorly on yours,' he parried.

Rue watched Fairfax's eyes flash. He glanced at her and saw her disapproving look. Fairfax scowled at Voldemort very crossly. 'Whatever.'

Soon Ajit and Aeron came in to trade places with them. 'We won't have to see him again until after the Doctor visits,' Fairfax said with visible relief. He smiled at her tightly. 'I know you're prone to feel sorry for him, but you really shouldn't. He'll be fine – well, he'll be out of it for a while after the Doctor visits, wish I knew what he gives him, but after a couple days he'll be annoying us all to death as usual.'

'A couple of _days_?' said Rue with alarm, stopping dead in her tracks. Fairfax sighed quickly in a patronizing sort of way, which did nothing to appease her. 'Aren't we supposed to be protecting him from harm? Why is this "Doctor" allowed to see him?'

'I already _told _you,' he said, hand clutching futilely at his short hair in frustration, 'he's got Ministry authorization from the very top – even management can't stop the Doctor from doing exactly what he wants.'

Fairfax relaxed a little as they got moving again, and he put his arm around Rue's shoulders. 'But on the bright side,' he said deeply, 'the Doc brings his own people to handle Voldemort, meaning _we_ have a few hours to ourselves.'

Rue knew that look. 'I don't see how you can expect me to be in the mood for _that_ while someone we know is being _tortured_ in the same building!'

'He isn't someone we know! He's someone we _tolerate_ because we aren't allowed to wring his neck!'

Rue looked at Fairfax mutinously, not appreciating his tone.

He took a deep breath. 'Look, I'm sorry.' Fairfax took her hands in his and leaned in. 'How about we _both_ try to forget about him for a while? He tends to bring out the worst in me.'

She couldn't help but smile. 'You know you're better than that. I've seen you do good things. You're no villain.'

He became unusually contemplative. It was several minutes before he broke his silence.

'I never try to be, but sometimes I am.'

* * *

Ajit's compassion was harder to take than Fairfax's schadenfreude. It seemed that the more Voldemort lashed out at him, the more understanding Ajit became. 'If it makes you feel better to take it out on me, go right ahead,' Ajit told him, 'but it won't change anything.' 

Soon it was time for Ajit and Aeron to leave; the guards made themselves scarce while the Doctor and his cronies were present. They weren't allowed to be there, though Ajit had tried to remain in the room once. The attempt had made Voldemort feel something unusual, an emotion he barely recognized as nauseating gratitude.

'I'll be back to make you comfortable as soon as he's gone,' were Ajit's sympathetic parting words before he shut the door behind him.

Voldemort stared at the doorknob, waiting for it to turn again. His hearing sharpened in anticipation of footsteps. As he heard the Doctor approach, he allowed himself one shaky breath before settling on a bored expression and leaning back nonchalantly in his chair.

Appearance was everything. It was all he had in these encounters but for the comforting visualization of ripping the skin from the Doctor's bones at some undetermined future date.

The door opened. Four of the Doctor's men came in first; each settled into his usual position in one of the four corners of the room. He'd get them out of those corners soon enough.

Voldemort raised his chin as the Doctor himself walked in, hunched over his clipboard.

'Mr Riddle,' the Doctor finally said as he handed his clipboard to his trailing assistant.

So it begun.

Voldemort turned his neck slowly toward him and gave what he knew to be one of his disconcerting smiles. '_Dennis_. It's been too long – visited any nice caves lately?'

'Have your magical abilities returned in any measure?'

'If they had, I assure you that you would be the _very first_ to know.' Voldemort bared his incisors.

The Doctor's expression was blank and unchanging. 'Will you respond to my remaining questions willingly?'

'Denny, I'm _shocked_ that you'd think otherwise, truly.'

Without turning away, the Doctor said, 'Note that the subject continues to be sarcastic and to make vague threats.' His assistant jotted this down. 'Have you experienced any physical discomfort?'

'The pains in my arse are legion at the moment.'

'The subject is evasive,' the Doctor remarked to his assistant in monotone.

Merlin, he was boring. Surely there was some technicality that made killing boring, predictable Muggles legal. Not that he cared about legality personally, but he couldn't be the only one who wanted the man dead.

'Legilimency will be required,' the Doctor stated.

One of the men in the corner stepped forward, and Voldemort crawled back into his own mind to prepare his best, pointless defences.

* * *

Every time this happened, Voldemort questioned whether he should make it easier on himself and cooperate. It was the rational thing to do to avoid being held down as he was prodded with needles and spells. 

But some portion of him recoiled from the degradation of yielding to a Muggle he'd bullied as a boy. Each time he took the invasion and confinement instead. The Doctor – pathetic little Dennis – would always ask about his choice, and Voldemort would spit something insulting out along with his usual curses.

Ajit never invaded his mind this way with Legilimency; he skirted the surface like a rock skipping across a still lake, gentle and respectful. This man _dove_, and Voldemort's mind accepted it like water when it used to be made of stone. He shoved all his frustration and anger at the invader as furious little crabs nipping at his skin – it wouldn't stop him, but it would make his journey unpleasant.

Aside from that, all Voldemort could do was to consciously press against the bottom of the lake and stay away from the unknown man as he took what he came for – snippets of physical feelings over the past month or so. There was nothing special there; what saved him from worse was the Doctor's disinterest in his thoughts and actions.

He suddenly resurfaced, disoriented and shaking against his will.

'That will be all,' said the Doctor's voice; it rang in his ears like an explosion. He tried to cover his ears with his hands, but he couldn't move his arms at all.

'We will proceed with the sampling,' the voice boomed.

* * *

'Are you aware that you are a monster?' 

Voldemort's throat was dry. It was almost over. 'You're one to talk,' he rasped.

The Doctor was standing exactly where he'd been when it started. How much time had passed? Minutes, hours?

'I don't speak of actions, though yours are worse than mine by any objective measure. You couldn't possibly understand.'

Voldemort hated that patronizing line. Though his throat pained him, he replied, 'I understand more than any Muggle filth.'

The Doctor's brows twitched into a frown. He smiled, and it was a frightening thing – Voldemort couldn't recall ever seeing him smile since that day in the cave, decades and decades ago.

'You aren't human, yet you are cognizant. You are a monster.'

The Doctor never spoke outside of what was necessary; Voldemort wondered what caused him to volunteer such information. How could a Muggle even reach that conclusion at all? Knowledge was one of the few powers Voldemort hadn't lost entirely, and gaining even a little more would make this tortuous experience more palatable.

He tried to draw him out. 'Muggles think all that is different is inhuman and wrong. They are weak-minded.'

He'd hoped for a rebuttal; the Doctor did not speak further. Voldemort was disappointed, but didn't let it show.

Instead, he focused on moving his left hand. With great force of will, he managed to scratch his fingernails against the fabric of the chair's arms.

_Perfect._

Scratch. Scratch Scratch. Scratch scratch _scratch_…

Voldemort scratched at the chair, intentionally varying the intensity, speed, and rhythm. The Doctor looked up. No one else knew what was wrong.

Voldemort knew _exactly_ how much he was bothering him.

'Stop that,' the Doctor ordered, his voice raised for the first time during the encounter.

'Stop what?' Voldemort asked in mock confusion, continuing to scratch against the chair.

'That noise…'

The Doctor's hand quivered.

Voldemort glanced over at him with the beginnings of a smile. '_What_ noise?'

The Doctor's right hand started to scratch on the clipboard with the same rhythm, or lack of, as Voldemort's left, preventing him from writing. But Voldemort knew he was varying it too much for the Muggle's hand to keep up, causing the scratching to sound more erratic than before.

'Make him stop it!' the Doctor barked, his glasses slipping down his nose as his body shook. His assistant grabbed his clipboard just as it fell out of his hand. Another spell stilled Voldemort's fingers.

The Doctor's legs gave way as the seizure intensified. His minions stared, not sure of what to do. Voldemort admired his handiwork.

Ah yes, the Doctor's preoccupation with symmetry. Voldemort had tried to replicate that particular side-effect of torture out of curiosity a time or two. But responses to trauma were many and varied, it seemed – the girl he'd tormented on the same day in a similar way had simply killed herself at the age of fourteen.

Alas, the Doctor's body gradually came back under his own control. 'We're finished here,' he choked out, tongue barely obeying its owner's commands. 'Mr Riddle.'

'Dennis.'

So it had begun, and so did it end.

* * *

_That Evening:_

During his first year of Auror training Ron had been told that the best time to attack an opponent was when he was at his mental worst – tired, demoralized, lost. If that was indeed the case, he decided that McLaggen, who was still furious with him for whatever petty reason, would be by to finish Ron off at any minute.

He had handed over the evidence, tapes and all, to McLaggen. And he'd felt like a fool.

But he – or rather Phi – had made copies. 'It's an archivist's compulsion,' Phi had explained to a grateful Ron ten days before. 'The others are always complaining that Aurors don't log evidence properly with the Archive, so I figured I should…I hope you don't mind, I know I should have asked permission. Sorry?'

So despite McLaggen's insistence that the case was closed, Ron was working on it on his own time. McLaggen would never know.

And furthermore, he was investigating McLaggen. He was sure there was a reason for McLaggen blocking progress on the case at every step aside from his disdain for Ron personally. And Phi was helping, though Ron insisted that he didn't have to. 'Of course I do. I can't stand not getting to the end of a good mystery, Mr Weasley, sir.'

Actually, Ron had been glad of Phi's help, so he hadn't worked hard to dissuade him. He'd needed all the Archive had on McLaggen for his investigation, and Ron couldn't have gotten at it himself without raising far too many questions.

'Fine, but if we're meeting after work, I'm going to need you to call me Ron. No more of this Mr Weasley stuff,' Ron had insisted.

'Oh no, sir, I couldn't –' Phi had started.

'It's a deal-breaker.'

Phi still slipped up and called him Mr Weasley more often than not, but he was gradually getting better. His help had been invaluable – he'd copied all the records on McLaggen, put the originals back in their proper locations, and smuggled the copies out of the building without anyone the wiser.

'You aren't doing anything illegal giving me these, are you?' Ron had asked seriously.

Phi had adamantly denied it. 'Oh no, sir, – Ron, sir. Aurors have full access to just about everything that isn't kept in the Department of Mysteries. I didn't record that I made the copies, but it would just get me a slap on the wrist from the Head Archivist if she found out.'

'Be sure she doesn't. I don't want you getting in any kind of trouble for this.'

But McLaggen's records had nothing. On paper, he was the model wizard from a good wizarding family with solid political alliances. Since he was a high-level Ministry employee, Ron even had access to his financial transactions. Ministry financial records could lie – but good luck getting the originals from Gringotts to check against.

Ten days with no progress. Maybe the case really _was_ cold. Maybe there was nothing out of line about McLaggen.

'I'm giving up for tonight,' Ron announced to Phi around ten in the evening. They were working out of Hermione's office long after she had left; he just _knew_ that tonight was the night she would say _I'm sorry, Ron, really, about how things worked out with that case, but you're neglecting your responsibilities at home, and enough is enough_.

Phi smiled up at him. 'Goodnight, Mr Weasley. I'll clean up here. See you tomorrow!'

They were storing the evidence in Hermione's office too. Ron wasn't sure how great an idea that was considering what had happened to the victim's office before – but he couldn't keep it at the Ministry, and he _wouldn't_ keep it at home.

'See you tomorrow,' Ron ended tiredly. He didn't have the energy to quibble about the Mr Weasley reference or to tell Phi that this was probably the end of the road for their case.

Apparition within the building was made impossible in some way or other by Hermione – Ron thought she was a little paranoid about that – so he took the lift down to dimly-lit ground floor. He trudged toward the door with his head down, feeling awfully discouraged.

It was stupid, he knew – Ron had Hermione and two wonderful children, but he didn't have _purpose_.

It reminded him of Harry again. Ron had been deeply entrenched that night in McLaggen's files, and he supposed that some switch in his brain had been reminded of a late-night study session with Harry and Hermione over some mystery or OWL or Horcrux. Harry's name had nearly slipped past his lips twice when he was talking to Phi. There was even something about the shape of Phi's face when he smiled that reminded him of long-ago Harry.

A sudden surge of light registered in the corners of both Ron's eyes. It was coming from behind him. His body swivelled, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid being hit by the spell. Ron's limbs snapped into place, and he fell to the ground.

Ron was paralyzed from head to toe, his head twisted in such a way that he was staring at the wall. Light footsteps came toward him quickly; a hand grabbed his shoulder and turned Ron around so he was facing up. A man in a deep black shroud – _aren't they all, _he thought in the throes of shock – leaned over his prone form. Ron felt a wand digging into his temple.

'_Obliviate,_' the assailant spoke.

Ron immediately felt fingers plunge into his mind with grim efficiency. He steeled himself against the intrusion and put up thought-tight barriers as he'd been taught. He struggled and grunted – the assailant knew what he was doing, and it took all Ron's best efforts to hold him back – but his defences held firm.

Finally, after interminable minutes, the assailant withdrew, defeated. His face was so close that Ron could feel his heavy breathing. He wished he could move his mouth enough to spit.

'A pity,' pronounced the assailant in a guttural voice that sent prickles down Ron's spine.

_I know you,_ he thought frantically, but he couldn't think of who the voice fit. Not McLaggen…not any Death Eater he could recall…

_He has to be someone from the Organization_, Ron realized instantly.

His thoughts ground to a halt as the assailant pushed himself to his feet and levelled his wand at Ron again.

'Sorry,' was the assailant's final word.

_This can't be the end, _thought Ron in disbelief.


	11. Strings

**A/N: **Sorry for taking so long to post this chapter. I've had it done for most of the week, but I got _extremely_ sick on Tuesday from food poisoning and landed in the hospital, so I'm only just posting it now. For that same reason, I'm not going to have the Harry/Voldemort scene posted this month - I'm just way too behind on my actual work after being deathly ill all week.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter - there are some very important developments.

_**Chapter Eleven: Strings**_

The _clunk_ of the lift as it landed on the ground floor sounded as the assailant opened his mouth to utter the first syllable of a spell.

The assailant stopped and turned; the wand in his hand made a reluctant detour. He moved swiftly and noiselessly away – to where, Ron couldn't hear or see. The elevator doors slid open, and Ron knew it could only be Phi.

Dread replaced relief in his brain. Any assailant who could take an Auror by surprise would be more than a match for Phi. Ron struggled with all his might to make his mouth shout a warning, but neither his lips nor his vocal cords would cooperate. The best he could do was voice a low, persistent noise from deep in his throat.

In the still and echoing room, it was enough. The squeaking, stumbling noise of Phi walking across the tiled floor with his leg braces halted, and a bright light from his wand stung Ron's eyes.

'Mr Weasley?'

'_Avada Kedavra!_'

Phi's body fell uncontrolled with a metal clang as his leg braces collided with the floor. Before Ron could feel anything like sadness or guilt, he heard Phi's voice say, '_Finite_.'

Ron's body jolted into wakefulness. He twisted onto his side, aimed his wand as quickly as he could, and thought, _Expelliarmus!_

The spell came so close to disarming the assailant that Ron could taste his arrest on the tip of his tongue – but at the last moment a Shield Spell deflected the curse. He was about to cast another, but the assailant's hand flew into a pocket of his cloak and threw a pellet to the ground.

A thick hash of black smoke unfurled and flooded the large entryway within moments. Ron's eyes screwed shut, and he coughed as the smoke tried to pour into his lungs...he raised his wand to force it away…

The spell he cast caused the smoke to halt in its place, and moments later it rewound and shrunk back to nothing. The empty pellet rolled aimlessly across the tiles.

The assailant had vanished.

Ron first stumbled over to Phi, who was prostrate on the floor, struggling to find a surface to pull himself up with. Ron put an arm around his waist and hoisted him to his feet; he didn't let go until he was sure that Phi was steady.

'Thanks, sir.' Phi appeared shaken. 'Who was that?'

'I don't know. Did you get a good look at him?'

Phi shook his head erratically, and his voice rose to panicked levels. 'Not at all! He tried to kill me!'

'How did you survive?' Ron asked him, puzzled. 'I couldn't see.'

'I fell over,' Phi explained shakily. They walked over to the reception desk, and Phi leaned against it heavily. 'That man came out of nowhere – I was so surprised that my knees wobbled and I lost my footing, so the curse missed.'

It was amazingly lucky – but Ron was used to that.

No, it was impossible to get used to. He was ruefully pleased. 'And then you thought to free me?' Phi could have tried to disarm the assailant or Apparate away – both of which would have failed, but they would have been natural reactions. Most people wouldn't think to free the Auror nearby with what was probably their last spell before they were killed.

It reminded him again of Harry, only this time he felt happy at the remembrance.

'It made sense, sir,' answered Phi. 'He was about to kill me. It made sense to give you a fighting chance. I didn't have time to think about it – I just did it.'

Proudly, Ron replied, 'Those are Auror instincts you've got, Phi,' and he slapped him on the back lightly. Phi's childish pleasure at the compliment made Ron think that he understood why Dumbledore had loved his job.

Funny, he hadn't thought about Dumbledore in ages.

There was a lot to do. The attack needed to be reported and a (useless) description given. He was the first Auror on the scene (no kidding). But for that moment Ron just leaned against the wall facing Phi and chuckled softly at whatever fate or fortune or force that had allowed both of them to live through the night.

Phi stared at him in confusion. 'Sir?'

'We're lucky – lucky to be alive. I haven't felt like that in a long time.'

* * *

_The Final Night of August__, Almost One Hour to Midnight:_

The building was square, old, and imposing, and the brick was black in places from caked-on soot. A light whiff of cigarette smoke drifted lazily through the midnight air.

The Muggle addicts in the alley barely acknowledged McLaggen – here he was One – when he Apparated in. To them, he was a fictional character in a drug-induced hallucination. One of them said, 'Oi mate, got a light fer a fellow?'

He ignored the worthless man and walked inside. The warehouse was stuffy and lightless, but McLaggen found his way with practiced ease up the metal stairs to the third floor. In the third floor meeting room there was a gentle scent of incense and a heavy circular table set from wall to wall.

Zero, annoyingly always the first to arrive, stood in his usual spot behind Oblivion. His head turned when McLaggen walked in the room, and then he – purposefully, McLaggen was sure – looked away as if McLaggen wasn't worth his attention.

Oblivion sat furthest from the door, his face completely obscured by magic behind his stiff hood – a calm, dark shadow, his head bowed over white strings woven around his fingers.

'You screwed up again,' McLaggen accused before he took his seat. He stared up at Zero, determined to look unafraid of any threats. Zero couldn't act without Oblivion's approval. He wouldn't dare.

He knew Zero was glaring at him, though his face was, like Oblivion's – like McLaggen's own – impossible to see. 'There were complicating factors,' he rumbled.

Not inclined to withhold the smugness from his tone, McLaggen commented, 'So all it takes to throw you off your game is a crippled man stumbling? I've read the report. Your attempt was laughable.'

Oblivion sighed, completely ignoring them. 'This one's lonely tonight.' He tugged on the string on his right ring finger. McLaggen didn't know what he meant by it; he only ever understood half of what Oblivion said.

'Still playing with your little strings, Oblivion?'

McLaggen snarled behind his hood at Zero's dig. The gall of the man!

Oblivion looked up reluctantly from his strings and, in his hidden, androgynous voice, morosely replied, 'Not my strings, no. The invisible lines connecting the planets and stars and earth to my insides were snapped, and no one could put them together again.'

Gently, he added, 'They tried. It was kind of them. But the ends were too frayed.'

That was the sort of thing Oblivion said that caused all in the room – even the disrespectful Zero – to be silent. Oblivion turned his attention back to his strings, which somehow told him more secrets than all of the intelligence McLaggen gave him could ever amount to.

The Organization was riding on Oblivion's talent, his gift. ('A broken toy,' Oblivion would call himself.) It irritated McLaggen to no end that he was one of the few in the Organization who respected that. The others were all in it for money or power or some other frivolous thing – McLaggen was in it to be part of something special.

He'd missed the train last time. Heroes had been made, born – died – and he'd been stuck in Auror training while students a year below him became household names.

Not this time. Change was coming, and McLaggen intended to be in the thick of it.

The others would arrive at the meeting soon, McLaggen knew – all but Three. Three, Charles Creevey, was dead, and McLaggen didn't care because he was a Muggle who'd outlived his usefulness. Oblivion had the date he had so desired; what would happen on that date, McLaggen didn't comprehend, but he was sure that he would be told in good time.

Oblivion, still staring at his strings, said, 'Ronald Weasley. He does not want to die. Let him be for now.'

McLaggen swallowed. That was an unexpected command. 'Sir, he knows too much.'

Oblivion twisted the strings and brought them right up to his eyes. 'I am not bothered by him knowing, so you should not be.'

'As you say,' McLaggen reluctantly assented. He wasn't happy with the ruling, but it held all the force of law for him. He glared at Zero, wondering if he would dare argue the point.

Zero shrugged. 'Whatever.'

McLaggen rolled his eyes unseen. He wasn't sure what Zero was doing in the Organization. His usefulness was obvious – he was, plainly, the muscle – but why had he agreed to follow Oblivion when he had so little respect for him?

'You cannot hide your actions from me,' said Oblivion mildly, addressing Zero. It was the closest he had ever come to rebuking any of their number. 'All you have done and all that was done to you was Fated. There is no shame in it.'

Zero stiffened and was silent for the remainder of the meeting. McLaggen couldn't help but send a smirk his way – and he was sure Zero could feel it, even if they couldn't see each other's faces, just as McLaggen could sense the cold grimace he received in return.

* * *

_After the Meeting, Almost Midnight:_

Oblivion's words roiled Zero's mind as he waited by the side of the building for Aeron Vale. He had little to share with the Dark Lord, but the Dark Lord wanted to know _everything_, so there he stood, pointlessly.

_All you__ have done and all that was done to you was Fated_.

Those words made him want to tear Oblivion and his demented mind apart fibre by fibre. His ridiculous determinism galled Zero to the bone. He couldn't explain how Oblivion knew what he knew, but it wasn't through those stupid strings of his.

And if the Dark Lord believed in it all, more fool him. Zero would not have agreed to enter the Organization – amateurs all – when he was approached if the Dark Lord had not insisted on getting his precious fix of gossip.

'There you are,' said Vale, as though he'd been the one waiting all this time.

'Nothing much to report,' said Zero with a shrug. 'McLaggen continues to spill Ministry secrets, though Oblivion takes little heed of them. He's more concerned with what Chambers tells him.'

'She's the one from the Department of Mysteries?' Vale asked with a frown. He often had trouble keeping names straight, and Zero didn't suffer fools well.

'_Yes,_' Zero answered in a mocking tone. This was worse than teaching. 'Oblivion is obsessed with the place, especially with what Chambers calls the "Time Room" – and there's a locked door down there that piques his interest as well.'

'Why? What's in there?'

Zero snarled. 'I _don't know_! I was never an Unspeakable! Brookes gave his usual unenlightening report on Potter, and Ramsden said only that the Dark Lord's condition is unchanged.'

Vale's lip curled with malice at the mention of Fairfax Ramsden.

'Then that mediwizard – Hawkins – reported on someone called the Doctor, who's making progress at _whatever_ it is he does. Oblivion's interest in him is unclear to me. And the Muggle financier worked out payment details with some others for them to continue making trouble –'

'What sort of trouble?' interrupted Vale.

'I'm not privy to the details.'

'You _stand behind him_ the whole bloody time,' Vale protested. Zero wondered for a moment if the idiot child would draw his wand. 'You're "privy" to everything!'

'I'm not. I've told you all this before. He commands them via those damn audio tapes. I don't know what's on them all. The general meetings are…general. We don't all know what everyone else is up to. He only tells each of us what we need to know.'

'The Dark Lord wants to know more about the twentieth of May.'

These conversations with Vale were like talking to the Dark Lord through a tin can. 'There's nothing more to know about it. Oblivion is vague.'

Vale stepped forward aggressively, and like the neophyte at subterfuge that he was, nearly shouted, 'The Dark Lord says you should press for details. He wants you to stop passively collecting information and start getting specifics!'

Zero snarled. The Dark Lord was blessed to have any sort of information considering his weakness. Zero wouldn't be working for him if he had any other sort of choice. Nothing less could convince him to come anywhere near this building, stacked brick by brick with painful memories as it was.

'And I want his Lordship to get off his arse and kill Potter. Tell him that for me.'

Vale seemed stymied by his nerve. He and McLaggen were such tools of their respective masters. 'Anything else?' Vale asked after an awkward silence.

'Eight.'

'Eight?'

'I still don't know who he is or what he does.'

And Zero was genuinely bothered by it. Eight was persistently familiar, and Zero was certain he'd felt him before – the way he moved, the way he held his wand. He'd been an ally or a fearsome enemy before. That meant he was either an Auror – one of the hardened old crowd like Zero himself, not an untried newer one like Fairfax Ramsden – or an ex-Death Eater. Either option made him potentially dangerous.

Vale huffed. 'How _useful _of you.'

'You spend your days changing the Dark Lord's nappies. Don't lecture me on usefulness. Remind the Dark Lord that I won't wait forever.'

Zero turned and swept away down the alley. 'I did that last time!' Vale yelled back to him. 'He says you will! He says you'll wait ten years more for revenge if you have to!'

Zero paused briefly in his steps, an acknowledgment of truth, and then kept going.

* * *

_Midnight:_

In the five minutes following the meeting between Zero and Aeron Vale, Fairfax continued to stand nearby under his Invisibility Cloak. He'd felt nothing as he watched them, too intent on his mission – but now that it was over, he was sick to his stomach.

He tried hard to push away the fear. He could do this. He just had to think.

It was suddenly too warm under the Invisibility Cloak. He took it off and threw it over his shoulder, but that didn't help him to escape from the still night air and his own thoughts.

_Follow Zero when he leaves the meeting,_ Oblivion had instructed on the tape. It was the most direct order Fairfax had ever got from him.

But that was all. There had been no instructions about what to do with what he found. He had to do _something_, but what?

He wished Oblivion hadn't asked it of him. Couldn't it have been someone else? McLaggen would have been only too happy to find out about Zero's betrayal – the two couldn't stand each other. Fairfax, personally, liked to stay out of Zero's way, and being thrown into it like this was very unpleasant and potentially deadly.

If given a choice, Fairfax wouldn't touch this situation with a ninety-foot pole.

One option was to tell McLaggen and let _him_ deal with it. Then McLaggen would try to have Zero killed…but Zero would make mincemeat of McLaggen. He wasn't Head of the Auror Office for his talent. Fairfax was sure that Zero had to be an ex-Death Eater, and he'd have to be a nastily clever one to have avoided Azkaban for all this time.

Aeron. He could take care of Aeron. The ill feeling in Fairfax's stomach intensified, and he leaned against the building.

He'd never – no, he wouldn't have to go that far. He could Obliviate Aeron so severely that he'd spend his days wandering the streets wondering who he was. Fairfax could at least dump him off at a Muggle asylum.

But that wouldn't change what Voldemort knew – and Zero could always find some other way to contact him.

He took a deep breath and thought about it again. There were three problems: one was Zero, who needed to be stopped from contacting Voldemort again. Another was Aeron, who was apparently even more deranged than Fairfax had thought for taking orders from _him_.

And the third was Voldemort himself, who knew too much. Even if he couldn't do anything about it personally…well, Fairfax knew from experience that Voldemort could find new and inventive ways of causing disasters. With magic or without it, he couldn't be allowed to…

Fairfax could Obliviate him.

_No,_ he realized instantly. Only a violent Obliviation would do the trick, and it would leave his mind mush. Potter had been insistent that they _not_ do that, though Lord knew it would make Fairfax's job easier.

There were too few people with access. It would be traced back to his wand. Priori Incantatem. As an Auror, his wand was registered – it would look outrageously suspicious if he happened to break it or lose it afterwards. Then he'd be back to the problem of Zero killing him.

Fairfax paused. His legs nearly gave way underneath him as the answer came with clarity.

_Did I really just think that?_ he asked himself. He thought it again. It was monumental. It was insane.

It was the only thing to do that would solve all of his problems.

Fairfax hadn't killed before – but there was no one on the planet who deserved it more.

He had to kill Voldemort. Quietly. He had to make it look like an accident – no, like it was natural. Zero would have no one to report his information to and Aeron would have no one to manipulate him.

Maybe Fairfax could try being nicer to Aeron after that. Take him under his wing. Without Voldemort's influence, maybe he could be a decent person if someone showed him how.

I_ have to kill Voldemort,_ he thought again, trying to get used to the idea. _I have to kill Voldemort, I have to kill Voldemort…_

With time, the thought became easier.


	12. Poisoned

**A/N: **Thanks to Clara Minutes for beta reading, and thanks to everyone who reviewed - I really enjoyed reading your speculation! Just so everyone knows, the first scene with both Voldemort and Harry will be in chapter fourteen; I've already written it, so I am _completely_ certain. Enjoy!_**  
**_

_**Chapter Twelve: Poisoned**_

_Monday Afternoon_

Ajit regarded Voldemort with a curious look. Rue knew what he was thinking: _something's wrong with him today_. She wondered if it had something to do with the Doctor's visit the previous week; Fairfax had warned that he wouldn't be back to normal right away.

But he'd seemed fine that morning. Now his eyes were reddened and unfocused, and Rue could swear that he was even paler than usual. And he was awfully quiet.

The final piece of evidence was that he hadn't turned a page in his book for ten minutes. That wasn't strange by itself – Voldemort often ended up gazing out into space when he got bored of reading (she was sure that he'd read all his books several times and reminded herself to get him a new one as a present). But he didn't seem to be thinking; he was frowning and shifting restlessly in his chair as if he couldn't get comfortable.

'Are you all right?' Ajit asked concernedly.

Voldemort turned his head and glared more angrily than usual. 'I'm fi –'

He huffed and sneezed several times.

Ajit immediately strode over and produced a box of tissues (as if he just happened to carry them around), pulled one out, and held it out for Voldemort. He took it with a mutinous glare.

Rue almost smiled; so _that _was the problem. He was just sick. Even he had to get sick once in a while.

'There,' Ajit stated definitively. 'I knew you weren't feeling well. You should have said something sooner.'

Voldemort's lip twitched in annoyance, but he didn't say anything.

Ajit, acting like an overly large mediwizard, leaned over and attended to him. He looked intensely into his pupils, but he held himself back from feeling his forehead when the look on Voldemort's face stated plainly that Ajit wouldn't be seeing his hand again if he tried it.

He managed to snatch one of Voldemort's hands, and he exclaimed, 'You're frigid!' Voldemort took his hand back and grumbled something Rue couldn't discern.

'Would you like a blanket?' asked Ajit gently, moving fluidly out of Voldemort's personal space. Voldemort sneezed again. 'Some soup, maybe? I could make you more comfortable in the bedroom, if you like.'

Voldemort rolled his eyes, disgusted by the attention. 'Sod off.'

But the menacing effect was ruined when he was blew his nose loudly. Ajit shook his head in a motherly way. 'I'm going to bring out a spare blanket – you can stay where you are, but you need to keep warm. We don't want you getting sicker. Rest and concentrate on getting better. No exercise tomorrow.'

Ajit's final statement had the intended effect of perking Voldemort up. 'It's just a cold,' he protested in a nasally voice.

Ajit was already heading for the door. 'I'll get Aeron in here,' he told Rue as he left. 'Make sure he doesn't try anything with the tissues.'

When Rue turned back to Voldemort again, he was already ripping the tissues from the box, tearing them to messy shreds, and throwing them as best they could – though they mostly landed on him and the chair. Rue was glad to see it; at least he was still well enough to be recalcitrant _  
_

* * *

_Tuesday:_

At two in the morning, stiff, tired, and uncomfortable, Voldemort left his plain, sad little bedroom for the relative snugness of his favourite chair. He looked up at the ceiling and traced patterns in the stucco with his eyes – but after a few minutes he wasn't sure if the dots were part of the ceiling or due to tiredness.

The night shift squirmed at the abrupt change in his schedule. Voldemort was irritated by them. _I'm only__sitting in a chair instead of lying in bed like a corpse; what does it matter to them?_

Wolcott tried to prod him back to bed, but Voldemort stubbornly clung to his chair told him to go away.

'He's just sick,' Wolcott concluded as if it were some grand revelation.

At least his nose wasn't running anymore. Voldemort thought that must mean he was getting better. He had an excellent constitution. _It had better be a magical disease, _he grumbled inwardly. Technically there was no such thing, but certain illnesses like dragon pox and spattergroit were more common among wizards than Muggles. That would be less embarrassing.

_It isn't __spattergroit, _he decided. He'd seen spattergroit before, and his chest hadn't turned green. He'd contracted dragon pox during his first year at Hogwarts, so that was out too. He chuckled at the thought of the guards' panic if he had vanishing sickness.

Voldemort's brow furrowed. _There's a broomstick on the ceiling. Why is that? Maybe the roof came off. That's why it's so cold._

'Put the roof back on,' he demanded – or he _thought _he demanded. His voice didn't sound right. Someone touched his forehead, and he batted the hand away. 'It's up there,' he told the hand, pointing to the sky.

'Shit,' said Wolcott. He backed away, and Voldemort settled deeper into his chair.

Someone raised his voice as if panicked. Voldemort shushed him – there was no reason to be so loud. Spells to fix roofs could be cast nonverbally. He hated how people shouted when they were trying to cast a spell forcefully – it didn't do anything to make a spell more powerful. Cruciatus could be cast just as well in a whisper.

He bolted upright. They were going to cast Cruciatus?

_Oh, not at me, at the roof, _he reminded himself. He leaned back again in relief.

* * *

_Fifteen Minutes to Eight in the Morning:_

Rue walked toward the building with a new book under her arm. She'd spent an hour picking it out – it was an advanced text on runes, and it had only been published a few years before, so Rue was certain he hadn't read it. Voldemort delighted in picking apart advanced magical theories, ones that Rue couldn't even vaguely comprehend, and declaring them garbage. She was sure that it would cheer him up as he fought off his cold.

Rue hoped to slip the book in with his collection without Fairfax knowing, so she arrived alone and early that day. She was certain that Fairfax wouldn't approve of her giving gifts to the "inmate", and arguing was the last thing she wanted to do.

As soon as Rue reached the door she realized that there was a flaw in her plan: she couldn't get in without Fairfax or Ajit. They were the only ones on their shift who knew how to disarm the wards on the door.

_I'll just have to hope that Ajit gets here first,_ thought Rue, looking apprehensively down the alley.

Then, to her astonishment, the door opened. One of the night guards, Evander Edgecomb, bent his finger to indicate that Rue should come in. She did so unsurely, wondering what the stricken look on his face was about.

'Thank Merlin you're early,' he told her quickly. 'Look, he's sick, really sick, and we don't know what to do. He's been muttering nonsense for hours – you need to go to the apothecary and get a Fever-Reducing Potion. None of us can leave; we need two with him and one to guard the rest of the building.'

Rue's mouth hung open dumbly as she tried to take in all the man said. 'What about your fourth?' she asked after a moment.

'What?' asked Edgecomb impatiently, looking at her as if she was an idiot.

'The forth person on your shift.'

His jaw was set in annoyance. 'There _is_ no fourth person on the night shifts. Get going already.'

Meekly, Rue started, 'I…all right, but –'

He slapped a Galleon and a few Sickles into her hand. 'Get going!'

With that, Rue found herself shoved out the door. 'Wait a minute,' she said to herself slowly, a frown forming, 'the apothecary isn't open yet.'

She swivelled back to the door, but it was closed – and Fairfax had warned her about touching it. Rue stood in place for several moments, wondering what to do.

The answer came to her. Rue shoved the money into her pocket and dug out her wand. She Apparated to the kitchen of her house.

Her mother was startled and let out a brief shriek. 'Rue! What –'

'I need Fever-Reducing Potion,' she interrupted. Her mum used to be a nurse; since marrying into the wizarding world, she always kept basic medical potions on hand in case they were needed.

'Fine, but don't ever do that again! Scared me half to death,' she muttered. Rue's mother opened the pantry door and poked through her supply of potions until she found the right one.

'Here you are,' she said, handing Rue the vial. 'You aren't sick, are –'

'Thanks Mum, sorry, can't explain right now!' Rue said frantically, waving her wand and Apparating away.

Rue arrived back at the apartment building just as Ajit was rounding the corner. She cringed as she realized that he'd caught her Apparating instead of taking the Underground.

Sternly disapproving, he said, 'I hope you haven't been doing that regularly.'

'No!' Rue protested. She dropped her wand back into her pocket and took out the vial. 'The people inside said they needed a Fever-Reducing Potion, so I left and came back with it. I'm really sorry, but it sounded important!'

Ajit took the vial from her. 'Good work,' he stated with a dour expression. Rue brightened, glad not to be in trouble. The book was starting to feel heavy in her arm, so she switched it to the other one – Ajit looked at it, but didn't ask.

'If he needs this, he's definitely worse off than we left him.' Ajit looked up at the building. 'I hope they've been looking after him properly.'

They went inside. 'Ajit!' Edgecomb cried, running his hand through his thinning hair in relief. 'And you, you brought the potion?'

Rue bristled at being referred to as _you_. 'She did,' replied Ajit. The three ascended the stairs together. 'How bad is he?'

'Delirious. He got up at two, and Wolcott just got him back to bed an hour ago,' nattered Edgecomb.

He looked up at Ajit desperately, expecting guidance, but Ajit only shook his head in worry. As they approached the seventh floor, Ajit turned to Rue and said, 'We'll try the Fever-Reducing Potion to start.'

Rue nodded unthinkingly in agreement, biting down hard on her lip. It seemed that whatever Voldemort had was worse than a cold – but surely he'd still get over it.

* * *

_Wednesday:_

Voldemort woke very slowly, drenched in sweat and with eyelids too heavy to lift. His throat was dry, and a cough forced its way out of his lungs; his parched lips peeled harshly apart to let it pass.

'Voldemort,' said a voice. A hand settled against his chest. He tried to move his arms, but they were pinned down by the blankets.

He managed to open his eyes to slits. _Ajit._ His ill mind managed to pick out the oddity of the scene: it was dark in the room, with no light slipping through the curtains. Ajit shouldn't have been there.

'You…' Voldemort began, but he entered into another coughing fit. His whole body ached from it.

'It's okay,' Ajit assured him in a kind whisper, rubbing his shoulder as the fit passed. 'You need to drink something. I know you're tired, but it's very important.'

Voldemort's head was ripped apart by pain as Ajit propped him up, and he cringed. 'I know, I know,' soothed Ajit. 'You can go back to sleep soon.'

Once his eyes had stopped flashing, Voldemort's eyes were drawn to another difference in the room. 'Not my book,' he said, pointing weakly at his meagrely stocked bookshelf.

Ajit smiled. 'Rue got it for you. Wasn't that nice of her? You can read it when you're better – it's something to look forward to.'

A vial was pressed to his lips, and Voldemort drank a few sips before turning his head away. 'You need to finish it,' insisted Ajit. His hand moved Voldemort's head back into place, and he reluctantly drank the rest.

'I don't feel well,' Voldemort said without meaning to.

'That's fine; just rest and get better.'

Ajit moved Voldemort so that he was lying down again; every bone in his body protested the movement, and he didn't feel much better once his head was against the pillows again. But before he could complain, Voldemort had fallen back into a fitful sleep.

* * *

_Thursday:_

Caesar prowled around Voldemort's empty chair and scratched insistently at the door to his room, yowling loudly whenever he sensed anyone giving his pleas the slightest attention. But when Rue had allowed the cat inside the day before, Voldemort had shown the first sign of life since Monday. He had jumped onto Voldemort's chest, and Voldemort had raised his arm and smacked it away.

'Get out!' he'd said as loudly as he could – which wasn't very loud with his dry, scratchy throat, but Rue could hear him faintly from the doorway. 'You can't have me yet!'

Rue had managed to carry the protesting feline out after that, though she'd been badly scratched. Ever since then she had seen Caesar in a different light; less a comforting cat, more a vulture. Even Ajit, usually fond of Caesar, shooed him away whenever he opened the door.

Aeron was watching Voldemort, and Rue was standing nervously outside the room. She was supposed to be inside as well, but she wanted to listen to the strenuous argument between Fairfax and Ajit taking place in the hallway.

'He needs a Healer!' Ajit roared. The force of his usually gentle voice made the situation seem all the more dire.

'We can't bloody get him one!' Fairfax shouted back. 'Don't you _get it_?! We're _not_ management! Only management and the Minister can approve visitors!'

'Then I'll go to the Ministry!'

'And tell them _what_? He's only been sick for a few days! He'll get over it!'

'He's not getting better! He's having trouble breathing!'

'You're overreacting!'

Ajit's voice was menacing. 'Fairfax, _you_ are the head Auror on this watch! Asking the Ministry to allow a Healer in will sound better coming from you!'

'Then you'll have to find another head Auror on _another_ watch to support you, because I _won't_.'

Rue's blood ran cold. Was Voldemort really _that_ sick? She glanced at the door to his room with a worried expression. What would happen if he died? Would he return with his magical abilities intact? To Rue's surprise, that didn't seem like such a bad prospect…but last time he hadn't returned for ages…

In a lower voice that Rue struggled to hear, Ajit replied, 'You don't like him, but this is a man's _life_ we're discussing! If it's not as bad as I think it is, what harm could it do to bring in a Healer?'

'It would cause panic, that's what!' said Fairfax. 'The _Prophet_ would get the story! You know what that means – fire and brimstone talk! And furthermore –'

Rue squealed as she was shocked by a tap on the shoulder. She spun round and glared at Aeron. 'What are you doing? Who's watching _him_?'

'I don't like you, and you don't like me,' declared Aeron in an insistent whisper, 'but we both want him to get better. Something has to be done, and those two –' he indicated the door disdainfully '– aren't going to get it done with their bickering. Someone needs to go behind Ramsden's back.'

'And let me guess, that someone is me, is it?' Rue crossed her arms. 'Well, that's just great.'

'Ajit can't; he's been staying here all day and all night,' argued Aeron, 'and Fairfax is having me watched!'

'Humph. Watched? Please, Fairfax wouldn't –'

Aeron grabbed Rue's shoulders forcefully, and her mouth fell open in surprise. His gaze was intense and deadly serious. 'There are things about him you don't know! Just trust me, damn it – for _his_ sake!'

'What am I supposed to do?' she demanded. Feeling helpless, Rue declared, 'I _want_ to do something, but _I _don't have the sway to get the Ministry involved, and I don't have the slightest idea how to contact management – and neither do you!'

'There's someone else,' Aeron stated curtly. He glanced toward the door to Voldemort's bedroom nervously as if he expected to hear a protest.

In a whisper, he added, 'You know, _him._'

Rue shook her head. 'Who?'

Whispering even lower, he leaned toward her ear and said, 'Harry Potter.'

* * *

Fairfax wasn't concerned about Ajit's scheme to get a Healer in. Management wouldn't get the memo in time, and the Minister would want to wait before risking a public relations disaster. With luck, Voldemort would be dead – as dead as he could possibly be – by next Monday. 

Fairfax stood over Voldemort's prone form in bed. His breathing was laboured, but for once his eyes were open. He put his hand on his forehead – 'Your fever's gone down,' he said blandly. That was fine; he knew it would return worse than ever. He'd memorized the symptoms all weekend before he'd acted.

'You think you've done this,' rasped Voldemort. His eyes hooked Fairfax's and dragged them in – he couldn't look away.

'You haven't. You're just a pawn.' With a weak smile, he added, 'And now you're a murderer.'

'If you hadn't stuck your nose into the Organization's business, it wouldn't have come to this,' scolded Fairfax, backing away. He hadn't expected a confrontation. What if Voldemort said something to Ajit? _He wouldn't be believed…he'd think it was the fever…_ Ajit wasn't the suspicious sort.

But the accusation – _murderer_ – still gnawed at him.

'Terrible name, "the Organization",' muttered Voldemort. '"Death Eaters" is more menacing.'

'We're _not_ like the Death Eaters. We're running a business,' Fairfax retorted. He wished his legs would carry him out of the room, but they were shocked into place by Voldemort's unexpected lucidity.

Voldemort sneered; it was more disturbing on his white, ravaged face than ever before. Bluntly yet forcefully, he said, 'You're a fool. You'll die with nothing in the end.'

Then his energy gave out completely. He sagged onto the bed and closed his eyes.

Fairfax stared at him for a while longer before backing out of the bedroom. It would be so much easier if he'd just _die_ already.

* * *

Voldemort was afraid. He didn't want to be forced from his body again. He wouldn't really die unless Potter…_does he have the courage? _Voldemort wondered. His heart was suddenly gripped with a far greater terror. 

He couldn't leave his fate to _him._

But he had no choice…his options were exhausted. He was a weakened, dying Muggle faced with being incorporeal for years or being erased from existence completely – and even that meagre selection was not his to make.

_Potter_…the name of his old foe was the last thought to pass through Voldemort's mind before he sank again into a disturbed unconsciousness, haunted by the unpleasant death that gnawed at his heels.


	13. Seeking

_**A/N:**_I'm awfully sorry about not posting this sooner. Real life and mild depression made it very difficult to write. I'm back on form now, but I want to finish off my other fic before I pick up my writing of this one again, so what I'm posting now are edited and beta read versions of chapters I'd already written well over a month ago. This is the first of the two; the second will be up after I find time in my crazy graduate research schedule to edit it and have it beta read.

I really hope that you enjoy it despite the long wait! I'd also like to give thanks for the support of my reviewers, who have been very encouraging. I probably never would've gotten out of my writing funk without you!

_**Chapter Thirteen: Seeking**_

Harry tried to attribute his goosebumps to the sleek leather chair that pressed against his arms, but the lie was too blatant for even his fib-accustomed mind to accept. The team manager's loud voice carried the Floo conversation he was having with his wayward eldest son; there was potion addiction involved, and the _Daily Prophet_ was sure to learn of the scandal eventually.

He swivelled from side to side and gazed aimlessly out the false window portraying a heavy spring rain. The inhabitants of the portraits on the walls were whispering and tiptoeing out of the room…perhaps one of them wanted to inform the _Prophet_. But how would the information-grubbing reporters pay a painting for its services?

It wouldn't matter, he realized. The _Prophet _would have the story of Harry's firing on its front page.

The article would start with _Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived _(this would also be the first line of his obituary), _whose Quidditch career has been in dire straits for some years, has been booted out of the sport. _It would draw parallels between his failure at Quidditch and his failure in other areas. There would be an editorial column questioning his worth as a human being. Letters would be written in his support, Howlers would be delivered to his home, and within months interest in his affairs would peter until his next public humiliation.

To distract himself, Harry thought about what he'd be doing that night: drinking with Ron, who hadn't been around much since the attempt on his life, so obsessed was he with finding his would-be murderer. The anonymity of a crowded bar would be a welcome relief to Harry.

The manager opened the door and clicked it shut behind him. Harry didn't turn around, but he did find the courage to look him in the eye for a split-second as he sat down across the desk.

'Sorry to keep you waiting,' said the manager. The apology sounded like a distracted formality, so much so that Harry would have been less offended without it.

'No trouble at all, sir,' said Harry. He decided that he would be the embodiment of politeness at this meeting; the _Prophet_ would hoard the minimum entertainment value possible from his troubles.

The manager, a chubby man with a thick moustache that bobbed as he spoke, turned to business at once. 'I'm sure you know your performance in the past few years has been sub-par. Frankly, Potter, it's not what we paid for. You're not the draw you used to be, and your abilities don't justify keeping you on the team. We've got a good shot at winning the League this year – but not with you as Seeker.'

'I understand, sir.' He didn't care as much as he'd thought he would.

'Well, your career isn't over yet,' said the manager reassuringly. Perhaps he was glad Harry wasn't ranting and raving. But it was the _yet_ that caught Harry's attention – the inevitability of his departure from Quidditch, and soon. He smiled mirthlessly.

The manager must have thought the smile was genuine, for he said, 'There now, _that's _the right attitude! There's a team that wants you – not the same calibre, mind, but…'

The manager pushed a small piece of parchment across the table. Harry picked it up and flipped it. There was a salary – half what he made now, but that was no bother – and then there was the team name. Harry's mouth fell at first in disbelief, but before the manager could stutter some empty kind words, he broke out into a full-fledged grin.

It struck Harry that he should be bothered by getting more enjoyment out of the mocking twists in his life than anything else these days.

'The Chudley Cannons,' Harry declared, wondering what Ron would think – no, he knew what Ron would think. He would pretend to be thrilled and pat Harry on the back and ask when his poster would come out, and inwardly he'd wish his favourite team had a better Seeker.

* * *

Harry reverted to disappointment as he cleaned out his locker. Next week, his training with the Chudley Cannons, the butt of every Quidditch joke for generations, would begin in earnest. And then, in a year or two, even the Cannons wouldn't want him anymore. 

For the first time in a very long time, he wondered what he would do with the rest of his life – not just the rest of the day or the rest of the week, but after he didn't have Quidditch as a way to fill up his empty hours. He could easily get a job at the Ministry – some backroom, paper-pushing task that didn't pay as much as the interest on his gold at Gringotts. But why bother?

Ginny wanted to have children. Harry could stay home and take care of them. The idea left his heart empty. He'd pushed it to the back of their agenda again and again over the years, but he knew it wasn't fair to Ginny to pretend that he was just waiting for the right time.

Harry's sadness deepened. He wouldn't bring children he couldn't love into the world. It was bad enough looking into the faces of his wife and friends and being unable to summon the deep-rooted love he was supposed to have for them.

_It would be better if…_

He started but was unable to finish the thought. It probably would be better for everyone else, but what remained of Harry's soul – or perhaps that part of _his_ – recoiled in fear.

'Potter!'

A shudder ran through him at the unexpected interruption, but Harry recovered quickly. He turned and saw Brookes fixing him with a frightened stare. 'Brookes?'

'You're not leaving the team, are you?'

'Yeah, I am.'

He closed the locker door with a clang and slung his bag over his shoulder. 'Tell the others goodbye for me, would you?' His ex-teammates go out to celebrate dumping him.

'You…you can't leave! The team needs you!'

Brookes's voice was high and panicked. Harry looked at him closely for the first time, having no idea where the sudden camaraderie was coming from.

'It wasn't my decision,' he stated with a frown of suspicion. 'You lot will do fine without me.'

'Maybe the manager can be reasoned with!' squeaked Brookes. He was waving his arms in odd directions, and his eyes were wide with terror the likes of which Harry hadn't seen since the old days.

With a sigh, Harry decided that whatever was wrong with Brookes, whom he'd never see again, wasn't something he needed to worry about. 'I don't think so. Don't worry, I'll be fine. I'm signing up with the Cannons. Good luck on your season. Maybe I'll see you in the British Cup finals,' he added with a self-deprecating laugh.

Brookes didn't even acknowledge Harry's joke. 'But…but…'

Before the flustered Brookes could come up with anything to say, Harry slipped out of the room for the last time. He was already reabsorbed with disillusionment about his own lack of a purpose or any prospect for happiness.

Harry was resigned. He deserved this punishment. He made his choice years ago, and all he had the right to do was live with it.

* * *

_Shortly Past Eight in the Evening:_

The odd look the security guard gave her as she went in didn't do Rue's nerves any good. As an Auror, Rue had every right to be at Ministry Headquarters late at night with her head held high. She kept telling herself that as she boarded the lift – she had never been there all alone before. Five minutes into her clandestine let's-save-Voldemort-and-not-tell-Fairfax plan, she was already getting the jitters.

She pressed the button for Level One. The elevator didn't stop along the way, and Rue reached her destination sooner than she was ready for. Taking a deep breath and trying not to look conspicuous – not that there was anyone around to see her – she stepped out of the lift and made her way to the Archives.

It was a long walk. When Rue reached the entrance, she tapped her wand to open it – only to find that it was already open. _Strange,_ she thought to herself, _who else would be in here at this time of night?_

She had forgotten how huge it was inside. How was she going to find what she was looking for? There wouldn't be an archivist around so late! If only she had paid attention during the day-long course on how to use the Hall of Records!

'_Lumos,'_ whispered Rue; she'd never find anything in the dark. She wandered deeper into the stacks of parchment and file folders and looked at the signs at the top of each aisle. _This could take forever,_ she realized in despair, worrying about how Voldemort was suffering as she stumbled around.

Then, as she turned the corner, the light from her wand fell on a figure barely a foot to Rue's right, and she screeched as he said, 'Hello.'

Taking deep gasps of air to relieve her terror, Rue asked, 'Who are you? What are you doing here?'

The man – he was just a little taller than Rue, with bleach-white hair and a pale face – was smiling pleasantly, and Rue dropped out of her duelling stance. 'I work here, miss,' he told her genially. He held out his hand. 'Everyone calls me Phi.'

Rue took his small white hand, but before she could introduce herself, he said, 'You're Rue Moreland, aren't you? I've read all the Auror profiles. You graduated from training recently.'

Her hand stopped shaking his in surprise and apprehension. 'You've read my profile?'

'Yes. I'm a little obsessed with Aurors,' he said with a short laugh. 'It's an exciting job – like living in a mystery novel. I work here, so I just flip through things in my spare time.'

'Aren't some files in here classified?' she asked him.

'Yes.'

He kept smiling, seemingly not understanding Rue's implication. 'Do you look at them?'

'Oh no!' he said – a little too quickly, in Rue's opinion. Grinning as if they were sharing a joke, he added, 'There's plenty of unclassified information to keep me occupied.'

She pursed her lips. His story was plausible enough, but her instincts pressed her to continue questioning him. 'So is that what you're doing here tonight? Flipping through things?'

'Er…' mumbled Phi, slumping and avoiding her eyes. 'Not…not exactly. I'm helping someone with…something.'

It was a suspiciously vague response, but the gleam of the light of her wand on his watch reminded Rue that Voldemort was suffering unbearably while she questioned this strange little man, and whatever he was up to wasn't her business. 'You said you work here? Maybe you could help me find something.'

His previous discomfort evaporated, and she was a little disturbed by how happy he was made by her request. 'Of course! Something for a case?'

Rue chewed her lip. 'Er, no, not really.'

Phi raised an eyebrow, and Rue realized that she probably seemed as suspicious to him as he did to her. It wasn't like this Phi person would run to tell Fairfax, so Rue told him, 'I'm looking for Harry Potter's address.'

'Oh!' Phi was more openly scrutinizing of her, but he said, 'Addresses are this way. I'll take you there.'

As he started walking, Rue realized that his legs were in braces, and he moved very slowly. She was torn between being polite and taking all night to get wherever they were going and being rude and asking him to just tell her the aisle number.

After a few long minutes, as she was about to take the rude course of action, Phi said, 'Here we are.' He indicated a long shelf with cards lined up down the rows.

Phi took out his wand and tapped it on the nearest shelf. 'Harry Potter, please.'

The card flew into his hand. 'Thank you,' he replied, and Rue wondered why he would bother being polite to the card catalogue.

He held the card in his hand and looked at it. 'So you need to find Harry Potter?'

Now Rue was getting frustrated. She almost wished she hadn't run into Phi at all. 'Yes,' she replied, tamping down her annoyance. She held out her hand insistently for the card.

He didn't give it to her. 'Did you need to see him tonight?' he asked. Perhaps because he noticed Rue's irritation at the question, Phi added, 'Because he's not at home.'

Rue's hand fell to her side. She watched Phi's expression cautiously – he seemed genuine, but she couldn't imagine how he could know _that_ much. 'Why do you say that?'

Phi had the same uncomfortable look as when Rue had asked him why he was there. 'Er, well, he's out with my boss. Well, he's not my boss exactly, but he's this Auror I'm helping with a case, sort of. They're at a Muggle pub in London.'

'Do you know where?'

'Yes. I could give you the address, if you like – if it's an emergency,' Phi emphasized with seriousness.

'It is, really!' she assured him.

He didn't seem to need more proof than that. He brightened. 'All right, here.'

He turned to the card catalogue and muttered a name she didn't catch. It flipped another card in his direction, and he politely thanked it again. 'Here's the bar's address, and here's Potter's address in case he's gone home already.' He handed her the two cards.

Rue breathed a sigh of relief. In retrospect, she was really lucky to have run into him – the older Aurors weren't exaggerating when they said the archivists knew everything. 'Thanks a lot!'

'No problem, but could you do me a favour before you go?' Phi asked, quickly and anxiously.

He'd saved her loads of time, so she figured she owed him one, as long as it didn't take too much time. 'Sure.'

His hands gripped his pockets, and he looked down as he asked, 'Could you not tell anyone you saw me here? The case I'm working on is supposed to be secret, you see.'

'Sure,' Rue agreed. She didn't care about whatever case he was digging into with whatever Auror. Saving Voldemort was her mission. 'And could you not tell anyone you saw me here either?'

Phi grinned. 'That sounds fair. Good luck with whatever you're doing.'

'You too,' answered Rue, already heading for the door.

She decided that Phi was a weird fellow, but he was also helpful and nice. Maybe she'd been too hasty in judging him. Archivists were supposed to be eccentric.

* * *

Harry stared into the amber liquid in the glass intensely, not thinking about much at all. He was relaxed, but not enough for his liking. Ginny still occasionally popped into his mind, and so did the orange robes of the Cannons. He wondered how long it would take Ron to get back from the loo; drinking alone was awkward. 

As Harry tipped the drink back and forth in his hand, lazily watching the contents sway, he barely caught sight of a woman moving to sit beside him in Ron's barstool. For a gut-gripping moment, he thought it was Ginny. But his brain registered that the woman's hair wasn't the right shade of red even before his eyes alighted on her face.

No, she certainly wasn't Ginny. She was an (attractive) Muggle woman who didn't have the slightest idea who he was, thank Merlin.

Harry relaxed and took a gulp of his drink, at the same time making the presence of his wedding ring clear in case she got any ideas. He knew that certain disreputable sources liked to claim he was unfaithful to his wife, but he could honestly claim that he'd never touched another woman.

'Seat's taken,' he told the Muggle woman, thinking that she probably wasn't used to having her presence rejected by a man drinking alone.

'Are you Harry Potter?'

Harry's stomach plummeted as his fogged brain deduced the possibilities. She was either a reporter or…a reporter. 'Who wants to know?'

There was something wrong with the scene right away; she wasn't as forceful as a reporter would have been, and a reporter wouldn't have bothered confirming his name – they seemed able to taste him in the air somehow. She even looked nervous as she said, 'My name is Rue Moreland, sir. I'm…'

He was certain now that she wasn't a reporter; she would have her spiel down if she were. She acted more like a terrified fan – but he didn't have many admirers these days. 'I'm sorry,' she said abruptly. 'I need to talk to you alone. It's very important.'

Harry raised an eyebrow. 'Care to tell me why?'

She swallowed and looked down at her feet. 'Um, yes, sir. It's an emergency. I'm an Auror –'

'An Auror?' Harry interrupted. Feeling much kinder toward her now, he gently asked, 'You sure you don't want to talk to my friend Ron Weasley? He'll be back in a minute.'

'No!' she insisted, suddenly wide-eyed and fearful at the mention of Ron. 'I…I need to talk to you. I'm sorry, I know I'm botching this, I'm just really nervous about meeting you, and –'

Harry had no idea what this was about, but he couldn't help but sympathize with someone who so clearly wished she could sink into the floor. Was she old enough to be an Auror?

'Okay, okay,' he agreed with a laugh, sliding off his stool. 'Let's get some air.'

They walked outside; there was a brisk wind in the street, and it was almost as crowded as the pub. To Harry's surprise, the girl – Rue, was it? – took charge. 'This way,' she told him. They bobbed and weaved through the crowd. She seemed to know where she was going, and soon enough they were in a quiet, dark alley.

Rue was calmer now. She faced Harry, his back to one wall and hers to the other, and told him, 'It's about Voldemort.'

Most of Harry's brain froze, but one part noted that he ought to have seen this coming. Why else would an Auror want to talk to him? 'What about him?' asked Harry, all seriousness.

'He's sick. We think he might be dying. He needs to see a Healer, but we're being blocked from talking to management about it. You're the only other person who could…'

His heart was pounding with terror. The concerns of the day didn't matter anymore. There had been a time when Harry was kept awake at night by worrying about this exact conversation, but that fear had fallen away after so many years with no news.

Now he could be faced with the ultimate, horrible, inevitable choice – one he was not ready to make.

But there was still the Auror girl, looking up at him with hope and expectation. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at Harry that way, and it lit a small ember of hope in his heart. He knew that he couldn't forestall the inevitable forever, but maybe for a while longer. The Auror wouldn't be here if there was no chance at all of saving You-Know-Who.

Harry forced a weak smile onto his face to reassure her. 'Let's go see him.'


	14. Convergence

**A/N:** Here's chapter fourteen, finally! Yes, Voldemort and Harry actually meet for the first time - but don't expect anything slashy yet. I'm currently working on finishing my other fic, so there may not be another update of Anomie for a month or so. Enjoy the chapter!

_**Chapter Fourteen: Con**__**vergence**_

Harry craned his neck to look up the dingy side of the apartment building, and in the space of a moment, he was awash with guilt – guilt about what he had done here and yet more guilt about forgetting. Now he was faced with bars set upon the small, vertically stacked windows where once there had been normal, happy homes, and he thought, _I did this_.

The blood pumping through his heart turned glacial as his initial horror was replaced with the clear, unbroken memory of the first time he had crossed the building's threshold.

He disarmed the wards, surprised that he remembered how to, and entered the building. His robes, drenched by rain, dripped onto the floor, and water streaked his glasses.

'What's this?' asked the man guarding the door. His eyes widened in shock and some fear as he realized who Harry was.

'I'm here to see him,' said Harry. He sounded perfectly calm, as if he weren't hearing spells and screams in his mind. As he walked up from the side door, Harry heard Ron and Hermione's feet striking the stairs behind him, their voices pelting his ears with urgent calls.

It was as though he were straddling two times. In one, the Auror, Rue, stopped by the door marked with a fading "7"; in the other, Ron threw open the door without hesitation and barked out a curse.

It was dizzying. He grabbed the doorframe and leaned against it for a moment to ground himself in the here and now. Rue asked if he was all right, or he thought she did, and he said, 'I'm fine. Let's go.'

His recollections of the hallway were not so fierce; Death Eaters with wands raised, shrieks muffled to silence by Dementors' mouths. He was moving much faster than he'd managed to then, when he'd fought for every inch of ground, so he managed to outpace the memories.

Until the door to room 7-3.

His hand landed on the knob. He held his legs steady as he walked in and swallowed his overpowering nausea. Despite trying to look anywhere else, Harry's eyes fixed immediately on the exact location of the worst decision of his life. He saw the stiff, bent fingers of the little corpse. There was a well-worn armchair there now.

_Did _he_ choose this room, or was it –_

His thoughts on the question ceased. He wasn't sure he could even think of the name without becoming ill.

Two men were in the room; one sat in the armchair, and the other leaned against the wall. There was an atmosphere of waiting. Both heads shot up to face him.

'I'm here to see him,' Harry repeated. As long as that was all Harry needed to say, he hoped to keep his inner trembling to himself.

The man leaning against the wall nodded and thumbed at the bedroom door. They kept staring in his direction as he walked toward it. The door opened from the inside, and Harry's gut clenched in preparation for _him_.

Instead, out came a massive, muscular man slumped with exhaustion. His eyes caught Harry's, and his tired face broke out in a genuine smile that made Harry feel uncomfortable. It was one thing for one girl to be happy to see him, but from a group of people, it was far too reminiscent of the expectations laid on him _before_.

'Harry Potter,' the large man stated. He held out his hand. 'A pleasure to meet you.'

'This is Ajit,' said Rue. 'He's been looking after Voldemort.'

Harry's whole arm vibrated as the large man shook his hand even while his mind was disquieted by the ease with which she said his name. Rain pelted the windows.

'I'm here to see him.'

'I know,' replied Ajit. He stepped out of the way. Though the room he revealed was dark, Harry could make out a silhouette in the bed beneath a sheet.

When he stepped in the room and the door shut behind him, he stood by the entrance a while longer, not wanting to go nearer. He waited for a voice, but none came. Then he crept forward, wondering if being here counted if he wasn't heard. Harry just had to get close enough to confirm that _he_ was really sick, and then he could send for a Healer, step back, and pretend ignorance.

A sheet covered the limp form up to his shoulders. Voldemort's chest rose and fell slowly as he took in shallow, reedy gasps of air. Surely that was enough to confirm that he needed help, but still Harry moved daringly closer.

He couldn't make out his face until he reached the foot of the bed. It was not the same face he remembered from the last day of the war – twisted by frustration, cursing him, demanding his magic be returned, swearing unspeakable revenges. This face was silent and still as the grave, and Harry was swept up in panic. He couldn't see Voldemort in that face; it was like a corpse. But he was still breathing, so he _had_ to still be in there somewhere, didn't he?

Harry licked his lips and took a couple of shaking steps until he was standing beside the man who had ruined his life.

He sat down very gently on the side of the bed. 'Can you hear me?' he asked, his voice sounding too loud in the otherwise silent room. Before he thought the action through, he rubbed his hand on Voldemort's to wake him; the skin was cold and clammy, and he brought his hand back as if scalded.

Talking would, he hoped, make the situation less awkward, even though Voldemort seemed incapable of answering. 'How are you feeling? Well, that's a bloody stupid question, isn't it? You look like shit warmed over…no, just shit, you're not even warm.'

'I…I'm going to get help,' he added, and he stared at the face, willing it to make some response, even a blink.

Harry's hand fell on Voldemort's cold cheek of its own accord. 'You're really sick,' he said, his voice softer than before, and he applied just enough pressure to turn Voldemort's head to face him.

His lips were dry and cracked. Harry's eyes fell on a bowl of water on the nightstand with a cloth hanging out. Without really considering what he was doing, he picked up the cloth and dabbed Voldemort's lips with the wet corner.

Weak breaths grazed Harry's nails. He watched as the lips opened just a little more, allowing Harry to wet them more thoroughly, and he smiled. 'See, you're not dead yet,' he said, mostly to reassure himself.

He relaxed and lost his focus on his task, and it was then that he stilled, even as his fingers kept pressing the cloth onto the dry lips. Voldemort's eyes were open, and he was staring at Harry.

Harry barely breathed. He knew he should move his hand, yet something irrational made him freeze like a deer blinded by headlights.

He wasn't sure how long they sat like that, but Harry eventually, slowly, drew his hand (limp but for the force needed to hold the washcloth) away. There was something _wrong _about Voldemort's eyes when he looked closer; they were dry and bloodshot, and he was squinting as if he couldn't make Harry out properly.

'I'm going to get help,' Harry spoke in a barely audible whisper.

He wasn't sure if Voldemort could hear or understand him, but his whole body seemed to slacken, and his eyes fell shut again.

He put the washcloth back in place as soundlessly as he could and slid slowly off the bed. No emotions filtered through his shock-addled brain as he walked out of the room. The relatively bright light outside rendered Harry momentarily blind; thus Ajit's hand on his shoulder caught him by surprise and kick-started his brain again.

'Are you going to do something?' asked Ajit urgently.

'Yeah,' said Harry, deliberately trying not to think about his surreal encounter. 'Yeah, I'll get right on it. I'll have to talk to management.'

Ajit was grave as he said, 'I'm not sure if there's time.'

'There'll have to be,' Harry answered. 'I don't have the authority to bring in a Healer on my own.'

Thoughts of management threatened to tug Harry back into the past, so he fought back those memories too. Part of why he'd never even remotely considered seeing Voldemort before, aside from Voldemort himself, was the fear that he'd run into management, whose accusing, hateful gaze would make it impossible for Harry to _not_ remember, just like this building did.

'Where can I find him?' asked Harry with pained resignation, realizing that the threat of Voldemort's death was far greater than that of a few deservedly awful recollections.

'You don't _know_?' asked Rue, voice rising in panic. 'None of us even know who management is!'

Harry was stunned. 'How can none of you know who management is?' _How does this place run itself anymore?_

'You know how our last manager died, of course,' said Ajit.

Complete silence followed. Harry's chest tightened; his breath came as a shuddering gasp. When he was able to speak again, he choked out, '_What?!_'

Ajit was visibly concerned at how ill-informed Harry was, and Rue looked confused. 'Voldemort killed him,' Ajit replied slowly. 'He's not allowed to know who management is anymore, which means we're not, either, to make sure we can't let it slip.'

'But –' he sputtered, his mind working out what was being said, 'but if no one knows who management is, _what is the point of management? What does management even do around here anymore?!_'

He was flailing his arms, and he realized that he probably looked crazy, so he let them fall to his sides and waited for an answer. The guards looked at each other expectantly. Finally, Ajit provided, 'Well, we do send in requests, which are answered within a couple of weeks, and we receive edicts about how to spend the budget, but other than that…' Ajit shrugged.

It sounded insane to Harry, and he had to concentrate to prevent his jaw from hanging open. What sort of bloody prison was this? He'd never meant for it to be horrifically awful, but this was just plain disorganized. Hermione would have a fit if she knew. 'Right, well, I'll figure something out.'

He walked out the door without looking back, irrationally irritated by the lot of them. It was late, and Harry could feel tiredness creeping up on him, but he knew from what he'd seen that this couldn't wait until morning.

He would have to wake the Minister.

* * *

Crassus Haffley, the Minister for Magic, let out a loud, wide yawn. They were in the sitting room of his home; he wore a fluffy fuchsia dressing gown that barely came to his knees, and Harry wondered if he'd accidentally put on his wife's dressing gown instead of his own.

'Just tell me who management is and I'll take my case to him personally,' insisted Harry.

Haffley shook his head and struck Harry with as keen a look as he could produce at that time of night. 'Why are you taking such a sudden interest? It's been nearly nine years since von Rot's death and the naming of the new manager, and you never enquired after him before.'

He'd never met Haffley, but Harry knew from Hermione's description that he was a lot like Fudge, except savvier. He would play politics with Voldemort's life instead of doing the right thing, favouring the wait-and-see approach to avoid the risk that the news of Voldemort's illness would get loose in the _Prophet_.

Harry wasn't stupid; on the other hand, he wasn't sure how to get the information he needed from Haffley without making him suspicious. This was a game he hadn't played since school.

Casually, he said, 'I didn't know until now that von Rot was dead. It wasn't announced in the papers.'

Haffley twitched as he waved off his house-elf's offer of tea. 'You'd have kept it quiet, too, in my position. It was a horrific way to go.'

Harry nodded in understanding, pretending he knew what Haffley meant while privately wondering just _how_ Voldemort had killed Torvald von Rot. 'But you must understand that it's critical for me to know who's in charge. I realize this may not seem like an emergency to you, but it is to _me_.'

Haffley sighed. 'Leave us,' he told his servant. The elf bowed and obliged him, instantly disappearing from sight.

'All right, Potter, I don't see the harm in it – and no one meant to keep you in the dark for so long, it's just that it never came up, you see. Now that you ask, I don't mind telling you that Voldemort's prison is run by Tristan von Rot – Torvald's son.'

The same crushing sensation collapsed Harry's chest as when he'd learned of von Rot's death, but this time his skin also prickled with the detection of something deliberately sinister. 'W-what? _Tristan _von Rot? That's impossible!'

Haffley sighed. 'I know that you and Torvald didn't get on, but his boy petitioned for the job, and under the circumstances –'

'That's impossible,' Harry repeated – because it _was_, and something was very wrong with this entire scenario. He felt around for a chair and, finding one, sank into it weakly, his knees shaking.

Haffley rumbled, 'Look here, it's nearly midnight! I don't need to explain my decision to you! I know he's not an Auror, but the job doesn't require hands-on work! Besides, giving the task to someone outside the Ministry helped keep his identity secret for so long – and no one else wanted it after what happened to Torvald!'

'_It's impossible_,' Harry whispered into his hands, unheard by the Minister. _What was happening? _

Harry stood up again, and without meeting the Minister's eyes, he said in monotone, 'Thank you, Minister. Sorry to take up your time.'

The Minister, clearly finding the whole line of questioning a waste, gladly showed him the door.

The rain had stopped. Harry didn't dare Apparate in his current state; he wandered down the lane past the lax Ministry security guards instead and watched his feet plop into large puddles.

After a few minutes of being shocked senseless, Harry's stomach lurched violently, and when he was out of view, he vomited onto the sidewalk.

Tristan von Rot, aged nine, had been dead for nearly ten years. Harry knew that for certain.

He was the one who'd murdered him.

* * *

The two guards in Voldemort's apartment were where Harry had left them. The Auror guarding the door was right behind him; Harry had dragged him up for a meeting.

'Where's the big guy – Ajit?' asked Harry.

'He's in the room,' said the Auror by the wall.

'Bring him here,' ordered Harry. After his complete breakdown by the Minister's home, he was finding it much easier to focus on what had to be done, as if he'd purged his negative emotions along with his dinner and drinks.

When everyone was gathered – except for Rue, who had left – Harry said, 'I'm taking over management of this place. If anyone doesn't like it, they can take it up with the old management – good luck with that.'

'You don't have the authority to do that!' blustered one of the Aurors.

The other rolled his eyes and clapped the dissenter on the back. 'Come on, it's Harry Potter.' He flashed Harry a grin. 'This is his thing.'

'So I take it none of you will object if I bring in a Healer?' Harry asked. No one said anything. 'Great. See you in a bit.'

'Thank you,' said a relieved Ajit to Harry's retreating back.

'No problem,' Harry called back.

* * *

Harry was exhausted and bored (because the alternative to being bored was thinking, and he still wasn't ready to process everything from that night). He slumped against the wall and kept his eyes closed as he waited for the Healer to do whatever he had to do. Ajit and one of the guards were in there with him. Another of the guards – the one who had disagreed with Harry taking the lead – was eyeing him carefully, but Harry wasn't going to oblige him by getting into a pissing contest at three in the morning.

Despite his resolution, Harry's tired mind finally gave way to his curiosity about what was going on here. He thought over what he'd learned about management; since he knew von Rot's only son was dead, someone had to be impersonating him to the Ministry.

_Motive is key, _Kingsley had once told him. _All right, _thought Harry, _so who has the motive to weaken the prison management?_

The answer was obvious: Voldemort himself. Most of the Death Eaters were dead or still in Azkaban, and none of the free ones had the incentive to bother. Voldemort had someone impersonating von Rot's son.

But if he had control of the prison, why hadn't he contacted management himself to get a Healer? Perhaps he couldn't contact management at the moment for some reason?

…And there Harry's energy for investigation ended. He could hardly believe that Voldemort still had the zest for intrigue; Harry had been burnt out of the business long ago. But it was typical of _him,_ so he knew he shouldn't be surprised.

The Healer came into the room. Harry's eyes fell on Ajit's exhausted face – he nodded back, which Harry took as a good sign.

'I can hardly believe it, but he's got Tottergromit,' the doddering Healer told Harry slowly as he wiped his glasses. 'It rarely exists outside of the Caucasus, not human-transmittable…but I have no idea how he could have contracted it in the first place…' He rubbed his beard thoughtfully.

'You can treat it?' asked Harry urgently.

'Oh yes, yes, there's a potion,' he murmured. 'We have some collecting dust at St Mungo's. Three times a day for twenty-eight days. It's most effective if started at the new moon, but he doesn't have time to wait for that, so he'll need an extra week's dosage.'

Harry went with the Healer back to the hospital to pick up the potion supply and Apparated back. He trusted Ajit with the stash. 'I'll keep this in a safe place,' Ajit assured him. 'Thank you very much for all your help.'

He waved off the thanks. 'Don't thank me. This is my job now.' _Again._ 'Good luck.'

* * *

Harry Apparated home just as the rising sun was casting hues of orange and red across the sky. He wanted to collapse into bed from exhaustion, yet he was also unusually satisfied, as if his day had actually been worth something.

It had been so long since he'd felt that way that it was foreign and exciting, and it brought with it a rush of adrenaline that propelled him up the stairs with a skip in his step. He held his hands up to the light lining the hallway, remembering the sensation of having Voldemort's face against the tips of his fingers. What a strange night it had been.

When he stepped into the apartment, he was surprised to find the lights on.

'Harry?' said Ginny. She came at him from the kitchen; she was wearing her dressing gown, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

'Ginny?' he asked in turn. 'What are you doing up?'

'Where on earth were you all night?!' Ginny demanded, wiping tears from her eyes. 'I woke up around three, and you weren't here. Ron said he saw you leave the bar, but he didn't know where you were.'

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you,' Harry answered, kicking off his shoes. 'It's a long story. I'll tell you later – I'm beat.' Truthfully, he hoped he could cook up a good excuse that didn't involve mentioning Lord Voldemort. They hadn't spoken of him often since they were married; his name only came up in their most heated arguments.

'So you're fine?' she asked – demanded, more like – with a hint of fury in her eyes. 'You worried me all night for nothing? You couldn't have popped by to say you were all right? What _were_ you doing?!'

Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes. 'Ginny, I'm too tired for this right now. We can talk later.'

Not bothering to hide her seething anger, Ginny replied coldly, 'Ron says he wants to talk to you today.' She turned to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for herself. 'Have a good sleep. I certainly didn't.'

* * *

It had been a strange fever dream. Mostly he had nightmares about dying and woke up bathed in cold sweat, but this one had been different. His sickly mind had granted him the sight of the person he most wanted to see – Harry Potter.

He had so many questions. He was willing to swallow his pride, just this once, and beg for answers if he had to. Potter had stared at him, and before he'd dared to believe his eyes, his lids had fallen closed against his will. But the sight of _him_, who had all the missing pieces Voldemort so desperately desired, had fuelled his dimming spark of resistance against the dark of death.

He had struggled, long and hard, to wakefulness, feeding his determination with faith that Potter was waiting.

But all that greeted him when he woke was Ajit, there to coax another potion down his throat. He was so tired, but he didn't want to die, so he did his best to swallow it all. Then, forgetting to ask after Potter in his exhaustion, he closed his eyes again.

In the moments before Voldemort drifted into a restful sleep, he wished for that dream to return…


End file.
